Balibo

Directed by Robert Connolly
Staring Anthony LaPaglia, Oscar Isaac, Damon Gameau, Gyton Grantley, Nathan Phillips, Mark Winter & Thomas Wright
Rated M
Score 6/6

War correspondent Roger East and the young Jose Ramos-Horta travel to East Timor to investigate the murders of the Balibo Five in 1975.

Balibo is the most emotionally confronting movie that I have watched this year, the movie is about the killing of a group of journalists Greg Shackleton, Tony Stewart, Gary Cunnigham, Brian Peters and Malcolm Rennie near the town of Balibo in East Timor on October 16 1975 and Roger East December 8 1975 by Indonesian Soldiers. The killers of these men have not been brought to justice.

Anthony Lapaglia’s performance as Roger East was so brilliant and so moving I cried. To be perfectly honest I had no clear idea of to expect when I went to see Balibo even though I had a vague idea of the historical events this movie is based on from what I have heard in the news. Everybody needs to see this movie.
Though I can not help but wonder, considering the age of the journalists who where so brutally murdered, did they think that they had a certain sense of invulnerability about them and that nothing bad would happen to them. Because even though I have not been a situation as extreme as a war zone as young man I have had similar feelings, feelings that where taken rather abruptly when I was involved in a traffic accident that gave me a spinal cord inury.


Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.