Will Timor-Leste Choose Its Past or Future? Two Films

Two enjoyable but very different full-length films on Timor-Leste (East Timor) have been revived on the net over the past year or so. Answered by Fire was originally a two-part mini-series which aired on Australian television. In the fiction-based-on-fact genre, it focuses on personal stories related to events surrounding Timor's vote for independence observed by UN personnel. It was shot entirely in Queensland. Its main stars play AFP (male, white) and a Canadian RCMP (female, white) officers and their Timorese translator (male, Timorese, nowadays best known as a Fretilin net activist). Viewers will come away with single-minded revengeful orientations toward the Indonesian military and state (even today) and, incidentally, not so flattering views of theUN in this period of history. The Timorese are victims, some saved, some not. The film is a thriller.



A Hero's Journey, a factual documentary now available on DVD, was produced almost entirely in Timor by a Singaporean. It is narrated throughout by Xanana Gusmao. The characters are almost all Timorese, some of whom Xanana encountered during the long years of Timorese resistance to Indonesian military occupation. While the film is not really Xanana's biography or autobiography, its time span covers most of his military and political life. Viewers will emerge with the view that while what happened can't be forgotten, Indonesians, civilian and military, must be forgiven in order for Timor to move on. Policies reflecting those views are in fact ones Xanana implemented first as President and now as Prime Minister. The film is a moving personal plea.

Revenge and forgiveness find totally convinced advocates in Timor today. Revenge centers in a certain segment of local civil society groups and some foreign activists (not including me). Forgiveness at least formally dominates the political class, including government and opposition. I could parse sentiment in a more complex way, but that seems to be the current big picture.

Watch the complete films on the YouTube links provided in this brief. See which side seems more convincing on what should be Timor's future path with regard to Indonesia, Indonesians, and, not least, the large Indonesian-educated slice of Timor's general population and educated elite.