Balibo

From the outset, Balibo impresses both the truth and the seriousness of the events featured. Three timelines are established: present day East Timor, where a woman recounts events that happened during the Indonesian invasion in 1975; just prior to the invasion itself, in which five Australian journalists are covering the news; and three weeks later, when older journalist Roger East (Anthony LaPaglia) investigates their disappearance.

Director Robert Connolly distinguishes the latter two plots by providing the five's story with a washed-out look, but it then becomes hard to reconcile how little time separates them, while the multiple time-lines are initially quite confusing. Balibo makes no attempts to conceal its political agenda, and, filmed in modern day, still-troubled East Timor, appears largely authentic. It is, on occasion, quite powerful, though one wonders how much creative licence the screenwriters took in recounting the personal story of the journalists and their fate. [Becky Bartlett]