Andrew McMurtryLetters To Ali 5/10
May 28th 2008 04:49
Letters To Ali is an Australian documentary I watched for my Australian Literature class and I probably would never have heard of it otherwise. When it premiered at the Melbourne International Film Festival, people said it was a very important film, and one that should never have had to have been made. Upon seeing the film, I'd have to agree that it is important and that there should have had to have been a moral reason to make such a film, but another reason why it shouldn't have been made was that it was the majority of the time unbearably boring. And as the film is about the grossly inhumane treatment of asylum seekers in the various detention centres in Australia, I find it almost insane that such a topic could not liven up such a dull documentary.
Trish is a sympathetic doctor who had began writing to a young asylum seeker, "Ali" and with her family had gone to visit Port Hedland, where he was detained. They travelled 8000 km to do so. Trish was then moved to write about her experience in a newspaper article called "Walking In Their Shoes", to bring more media attention to the issue of the treatment of Asylum seekers and the blatant breaching of the UN Refugee Convention 1951 of which Australia is a signatory. The article caught the attention of Hong Kong film director Clara Law. Law decided she was going to make a film about this woman, and her trying to save "Ali" from detention or deportation. Sounds interesting enough. But instead of focussing on Ali - the boy who fled war-torn Afghanistan after witnessing his brother and his neighbours being killed, was smuggled into Australia on a barely seaworthy boat stuffed with 300 other asylum seekers and spent years in detention in a facility more secure than most Australian prisons - Law decides to focus on the giddy family, and on her own journey with this family to Port Hedland. Wow, well as fascinating as it is seeing middle class teenagers playing with their piercings and countless shots of the road, I kinda expected a little more insight into the kid they were writing to. It's his pseudonym in the damn title of the film after all.
There were some interesting parts in the film, like when Law asks Ali about his conceptions of ancestors, the sea, suffering, death and so on as well as the footage of the Woomera breakout. But these moments felt fleeting, and the powerpoint-like information that popped up on the screen every now and again about the facts and statistics of asylum seekers were things I had already learned in high school, even late primary school. I went to public schools, also. So I don't know who this documentary was appealing to, because it only seemed to reiterate what the educated already know, and didn't do much to reel in those who don't know or are apathetic to the issue.
The thing I found most interesting were the interviews with former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser and former Immigration Minister Ian McPhee, as well as the interview in the special features of the DVD. Overall, the documentary was too long, was not compelling enough to have been released in cinemas and maintain even a highly interested audience for more than an hour with its home movie/high school assignment type storytelling, and didn't dare to go deeper into the political injustice of the issue, instead focussing on family and roots and that. Which don't get me wrong are interesting stuff but not as important to address with this issue. I didn't care how nice the family was. I cared about the poor people they were trying to help. Not enough empathy was created for Ali who they kept insisting was a human being. In the end, he was still a faceless cry in a sea of injustice, and it was still too easy to turn away from the blurred figure of Ali that briefly appeared near the end of the film.
Film still has a long way to go in regards to exploring the treatment of asylum seekers. I'm not losing heart. Letters To Ali was not a completely wasted effort. Hopefully it's only the beginning.
Trish is a sympathetic doctor who had began writing to a young asylum seeker, "Ali" and with her family had gone to visit Port Hedland, where he was detained. They travelled 8000 km to do so. Trish was then moved to write about her experience in a newspaper article called "Walking In Their Shoes", to bring more media attention to the issue of the treatment of Asylum seekers and the blatant breaching of the UN Refugee Convention 1951 of which Australia is a signatory. The article caught the attention of Hong Kong film director Clara Law. Law decided she was going to make a film about this woman, and her trying to save "Ali" from detention or deportation. Sounds interesting enough. But instead of focussing on Ali - the boy who fled war-torn Afghanistan after witnessing his brother and his neighbours being killed, was smuggled into Australia on a barely seaworthy boat stuffed with 300 other asylum seekers and spent years in detention in a facility more secure than most Australian prisons - Law decides to focus on the giddy family, and on her own journey with this family to Port Hedland. Wow, well as fascinating as it is seeing middle class teenagers playing with their piercings and countless shots of the road, I kinda expected a little more insight into the kid they were writing to. It's his pseudonym in the damn title of the film after all.
There were some interesting parts in the film, like when Law asks Ali about his conceptions of ancestors, the sea, suffering, death and so on as well as the footage of the Woomera breakout. But these moments felt fleeting, and the powerpoint-like information that popped up on the screen every now and again about the facts and statistics of asylum seekers were things I had already learned in high school, even late primary school. I went to public schools, also. So I don't know who this documentary was appealing to, because it only seemed to reiterate what the educated already know, and didn't do much to reel in those who don't know or are apathetic to the issue.
The thing I found most interesting were the interviews with former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser and former Immigration Minister Ian McPhee, as well as the interview in the special features of the DVD. Overall, the documentary was too long, was not compelling enough to have been released in cinemas and maintain even a highly interested audience for more than an hour with its home movie/high school assignment type storytelling, and didn't dare to go deeper into the political injustice of the issue, instead focussing on family and roots and that. Which don't get me wrong are interesting stuff but not as important to address with this issue. I didn't care how nice the family was. I cared about the poor people they were trying to help. Not enough empathy was created for Ali who they kept insisting was a human being. In the end, he was still a faceless cry in a sea of injustice, and it was still too easy to turn away from the blurred figure of Ali that briefly appeared near the end of the film.
Film still has a long way to go in regards to exploring the treatment of asylum seekers. I'm not losing heart. Letters To Ali was not a completely wasted effort. Hopefully it's only the beginning.
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