‘Balibo’ is a film that has been 35 years in the making. Ever since the day back in 1975 when five Australian journalists where viciously murdered by Indonesian troops while covering the invasion of East Timor, their families have been pushing for the truth to be told. But each time they tried to tell their story (or even find the complete truth) they were prevented, not only by the Indonesian Government but also by the Australian Government. That is why Director, Robert Connolly’s film ‘Balibo’ is such a valuable film; finally the truth is out there for all too see. Connolly has based his career on making great films, he directed ‘The Bank’ and ‘Three Dollars’ and was a producer on ‘The Boys’ and ‘Romulus, My Father’, but these screen classics pale into insignificance after you’ve viewed ‘Balibo’.
This film hasn’t only affected those lucky enough to see it, the deep scar it has left on his actors were clear for all to see when I sat down with two of the stars of the film, Damon Gameau and Nathan Phillips. Damon (who has made a name for his with roles in ‘Love My Way’ and ‘Underbelly: A Tale Of Two Cities’) plays Greg Shackleton in ‘Balibo’ Nathan (who has starred in a ton of films including ‘Wolf Creek’, ‘Dying Breed’ and ‘Snakes On A Plane’) both got involved with ‘Balibo’ in very different ways. ‘I didn’t have to dance like a monkey or anything,’ jokes Nathan. ‘I’ve known Rob since I did ‘Australian Rules’ and I know he is a filmmaker who is before his time. And I knew he didn’t make puff pieces. I was familiar with the story of ‘Balibo’… or at least I thought I was… no I feel like I was ignorant.’ Damon has a different tale to tell, ‘I did dance like he monkey,’ he says laughing. ‘To be honest I didn’t know much about the Balibo story. I found Greg Shackleton’s final piece he did to camera on YouTube and then I put that down as an audition and sent it off in a email… really, really low quality, but it all happened.
Not only did the cast of Balibo have to endure the heat of East Timor on their shoot but they also found themselves confronted by ‘ghosts of the past’ in some extremely eerie ways. ‘The lines between life and art really did blur,’ explains Nathan. ‘Not only we were meeting people who knew them, we were meeting the last people who knew them.’ ‘And we were given full access to the Balibo house,’ adds Damon. ‘It still feels like the 70s… it’s like a time warp. What was really eerie though was that we set up our beds we accidentally set them up in the exact same spot where the character that each of us were playing had had their beds. Then just before we shot the scene of the massacre we sat in the house where they were killed… that was really emotional. The night before they died they get any sleep because the Indonesians were firing off mortars and it was just so hot, then the night we were there we didn’t sleep either because there was an accident and a drunk guy. There were just so many coincidences while were there.’
So how hard was it to portray these men? ‘There was a real responsibility in getting ready to play these men,’ explains Damon. ‘This wasn’t just a case of getting their habits and tricks down pat, these were real humans and you had to do it properly. We had to remember that after this was over we had to look their families in the eye. They have been talking about this for 35 years, now they get to see it. That’s 35 years of crying themselves to sleep.’ ‘You also need to remember that some of these mother and fathers have died of a broken heart,’ says Nathan. ‘And they didn’t even get to see their son laid to rest. The only comfort they had was the men all died together.’ ‘It was tough,’ adds Damon. ‘The more families we met the more the weight took hold. I read Greg’s diary and Timor got to them and to us. It’s such an infectious and spiritual country that it takes over your body. Greg also wrote a poem about love on the day he died, and then you meet the families involved, then you find that you are living their actually death… it can be really dark, you have to be careful. Sometimes acting can be dangerous…. Look at what happened to Heath Ledger.’
I finished by asking Nathan and Damon what they wanted their closing thoughts on ‘Balibo’ to be and they left me with this. ‘I have a new admiration and respect for journalists of both then and now. I hope we use this film as an educational purpose to learn about the history of Timor. They are our closest neighbor… and guys it is a beautiful place to go on holidays to.’ ‘We need our generation to learn that what we are told isn’t what always happens,’ says Damon. ‘In the last twelve months 60 journalists have died in the field and people need to know that these atrocities happen. People need to realise that no journalists were deliberately killed during the Vietnam war yet in Balibo and even today journalists are hunted down to stop the truth getting out.’
‘Balibo’ is out now.