THE BOWRAVILLE MURDERS, Australia, 2021. Directed by Allan Clarke. 86 minutes. Rated M (Mature themes and coarse language).
The title sounds most factual and sensational – and the film is both. This is a significant Australian documentary, a reminder that in Australian Black Lives Should Matter.
There is quite an appetite in filmgoers and television watchers in recent times for Crime Investigation programs. Here are crimes that have been investigated over a period of 30 years, from 1990. This film takes us through the ensuing years, investigations, police inadequacies, child protection visits, re-examinations, the move towards justice issues in the New South Wales police department and the New South Wales government. Those familiar with the story will know the outcomes, or lack of outcomes. Those not familiar with the story will be amazed at how this process has played out over the three decades and be dismayed with the ending. It can be said that justice has not been done or seen to be done – but, in terms of action, solidarity, protest, the Bowraville murders, their victims, have become a significant cause.
Bowraville is a small town in northern New South Wales. We enter the film with two young Aborigines driving in, down the main street, past the cinema (where there were two entries, Indigenous having to come in by a side door and sit on the ground in the front of the cinema), and to The Mission, an Aboriginal settlement. We see the locations, a lot of natural beauty, and the homes of the families.
One of the dramatic advantages for this documentary is that there is a lot of footage from the 1990s as well as the processes during the decades – pictures of members of the family, parents, siblings, aunties, their reactions and then, seeing them over the years, getting older, up to the 2010s, hearing them, sharing their feelings, sadness, frustrations, being both encouraged and discouraged.
Throughout the film, journalist Stan Grant sits in the cinema, watches scenes of Aboriginal history, listens to townspeople interviewed about the Aborigines, little girls at school saying they don’t mix with them. Grant, as always, offers a perspective on long Aboriginal history, of the presence of white settlers, invasion, killings – ‘the killings never stop’.
The police were not particularly interested, generally dismissing the Aborigines, their lifestyle. Investigation was highly inadequate. A local man was accused, tried, acquitted – and is seen at various times throughout the film. An official was sent but he was a child protection officer. Later, enter Gary Jubilan, something of a hero, initially unwelcome, but learning from the people, championing them, furthering the investigations. (There is some amusement as later we see Gary Jubilan as a fighter, nicknamed The Gatekeeper, involved in a bout with the Bowraville community cheering him on.) New South Wales politician David Shoebridge takes up the cause, moves the investigation towards changing double jeopardy legislation. This is achieved. But the consequences for the murder trials take years, hearings, visits to Parliament, judicial inquiries, months to provide final statements.
The Bowraville Murders, earlier the subject of documentaries as well as television explorations, serves as a documentation of a sorry experience of Australian justice, of racism, of courage of spirit – a film which all Australians should see.
And worth seeing in connection with NITV/SBS Incarceration Nation.
Documentary Foundation Australia, SBS
Released September