Letters to Ali
Directed by Clara Law
Written by Eddie L.C. Fong and Clara Law
Now showing at the Palace in Sydney and the Nova in Melbourne
REVIEWED BY LACHLAN MALLOCH & SARAH STEPHEN
Letters to Ali is a sensitively made, restrained yet powerful, evocative and thoroughly humanitarian work. The Silbersteins, a Melbourne family of six, began in 2002 to write letters to Ali, a 16-year-old Afghan refugee in Port Hedland detention centre. Film-maker Clara Law read an article by Trish Silberstein and was so moved by the story she decided to make a film about it. In 2003, she followed Trish and her family on a 12,000 kilometre trip from Melbourne to Port Hedland.
Letters to Ali is a powerful film that, through the example of one family, explores the way the refugee issue has touched ordinary Australians and has led many to do extraordinary things.
We see the awakening of Trish Silberstein and her family to the plight of refugees in our own country, but we are also given a glimpse of the film-maker and her gradual awakening to the dark underbelly of her adoptive country.
Law uses comparison and contrast in a subtle and effective way. One example is the happy, "normal" scenes of play, travel and teasing in the Silberstein family, contrasting with Ali's experience. A stable, violence-free upbringing is not much of a human right to ask for.
The second example is more visually evocative. Outback videography in the film is stunning at times, ancient and mysterious. What's going on beneath this striking picture of Australia?
The third example is the so-called "long march" of the Silberstein family and the film crew through the outback to visit Ali. This reflects the long and arduous journeys of refugees in trying to come to a (supposedly) safe place like Australia.
Much of Law's narrative takes the form of words on the screen, sometimes captions or footnotes to the scenes, sometimes background information, a striking technique which allows the viewer to soak up the film's powerful and hypnotising images of the Australian outback and the Silbersteins' journey.
In her choice of interviewees, Law helps to reinforce the myth of Australia's glorious, humanitarian and welcoming past. Major political rhetoric of the film was from former PM Malcolm Fraser (who was given the penultimate word in the film) and former immigration minister in the Fraser government Ian McPhee. If Australia is ever to come to terms with the horror of mandatory detention, we have to face up to all aspects of our past treatment of migrants and refugees.
Dreaming of a glorious multicultural past that is now being destroyed by a few nasty individuals only perpetuates the problem. It's a "struggle of memory against forgetting", as Milan Kundera wrote. Rob Silberstein alluded to this with his comments about the Jewish Holocaust. Trish Silberstein made a compelling comment about this early in the film, when she said that she thought the German people could have stepped in "en masse" to prevent the Holocaust, but they didn't. She felt determined not to let history judge Australians in the same way.
This film is important now to help revive the debate and movement in Australia in support of refugees. Efforts like this one from Clara Law, supported by tremendous amounts of artistic and financial donations, are commendable for keeping the free-the-refugees light shining in public consciousness.
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, September 29, 2004.
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