freedom

Beatriz’s War Film Difficulty Ranking: 2

Why Watch Beatriz’s War?

For a brief history lesson on East Timor and one of the lesser known genocides of the 20th Century.
To follow a strong unmovable woman that sticks by the old ways.
For an East Timorese adaptation of the story of Martin Guerre.

From: East Timor, Asia
Watch: Trailer, Website, IMDb
Next: First They Killed My Father, The Look of Silence, The Rocket

A Brief History Lesson on East Timor

As mentioned in the opening scenes of Beatriz’s War, East Timor was a Portuguese colony until 1975 when the Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor (Fretilin) declared independence. However, their independence was short lived, as Indonesian forces invaded 9 days later to take control of the entire island. Indonesia then occupied East Timor for 24 years until East Timor finally regained its independence in 1999.

Beatriz’s War takes place over the 24 years of the Indonesian occupation. It depicts the violence of the Indonesian occupation as well as the fragmented East Timorese resistance happening around Beatriz.

Strong (or Stubborn) Independent Women

Beatriz is both strong and independent. She’s married off in the opening scenes as a young girl but due to the gentle nature of her young husband, she’s always in control. Like her father, the leader of the community, we’re always led to believe that she’s more likely to take a stand and join the fight against the Indonesians than her husband.

However, her strength seems to turn to stubbornness in the second half of the film when her gentle husband disappears in a massacre. Her community mourns the losses of the men and children killed by Indonesian forces, but she stubbornly refuses to believe that her husband is truly dead. She also never accepts her new reality, trying to maintain her old way of life by abiding by traditions. Her stubborn denial is a sign of the trauma caused by the violent occupation.

Fitting a French Legal Case into The History of East Timor

Martin Guerre was a French peasant from the 16th century who was at the center of a famous case of imposture. Several years after he left his wife and child, a man claiming to be him appeared and tricked his wife and son for three years before he was eventually found out. His story has been dramatized many times for film and TV over the years and is also inserted into the second half of Beatriz’s War after the departure of the Indonesian occupiers to emphasize the length of the occupation.

Primarily, the adaptation gives Beatriz’s War a lot of melodrama. It sets of a battle of emotions between Beatriz and her community as to the origin of a man who arrives in their community 20 years later claiming to be Beatriz’s husband. If you can get past the melodrama, the inclusion of the Martin Guerre story also highlights the impact of the long Indonesian occupation. Whilst the occupation physically destroyed a generation, the length of the occupation also helped to mentally blur a generation. With no photos, Beatriz’s image of her husband has faded over 20 years to a point where she can no longer recognize him. The long, traumatic occupation enabled the Martin Guerre story to happen.

What to Watch Next

First They Killed My Father feels like the closest film to Beatriz’s War. Both films follow a girl who sees their country occupied by an opposing force. Both films show the occupation and the genocides that go with it. However, whilst First they Killed My Father focuses on a girl’s perspective, Beatriz’s War takes place over 25 years.

For more films about the atrocities committed by Indonesians, check out Joshua Oppenheimer’s documentaries: The Look of Silence and The Act of Killing. Both documentaries look at the free-living leaders of Indonesian death squad that were responsible for killing hundreds of thousands of innocent Indonesians. The Look of Silence even gets the perpetrators to act out how they did it, with the killers slowly coming to realize the grotesque crimes they’ve committed.

Or if you’re looking for more stories from South East Asia featuring kids in coming-of-age stories, check out The Rocket from Laos and Golden Kingdom from Myanmar.

There is No Evil is made to be provocative in both the story structure and the content. Each of the four stories contains a mystery: we have to ask who the main character is and what they have done? Revealing their identity and actions is provocative as it shows how they’re linked to capital punishment and mandatory military service. None of the characters are what they initially seem.

Likewise the content is provocative. As mentioned, each story is linked to the death penalty and mandatory military service. But not just one of the other, as often the mandatory military service requires you to enforce capital punishment. Regular citizens are expected to follow orders and pull the stool from under those citizens deemed worthy of death. The director focuses on this to show how encompassing authoritarian rule is in Iran, and how blindly some people follow it. By showing how the state forces you to commit the absolute highest crime for it’s benefit, the director reveals that there’s nothing some citizens wouldn’t do to facilitate the authoritarian government in Iran.

There is No Evil is split into four parts partly for political/logistical reasons. Director Mohammad Rasoulof is currently banned from filmmaking in Iran and breaking the film into shorts made it easier to hide his name from the permits and delegate. However, breaking the film up into four sections also helps to expand the perspective of the film. Instead of focusing on one family in one singular feature, the four parts show the range of people and lives the death penalty affects. We see those who resist and those that follow the law, as well as family members and friends who can’t escape it. It shows that everyone can be implicated.

Whilst it shows people from both sides, the film appears to favor those who resist. This is shown in the openness of the worlds in each short, especially when comparing the first short to the last. In the first, we follow a father governed by his routines. He follows rules and chastises his wife for forgetting to do things by the book. Despite being free to go wherever he wants, his world feels narrow and restricted. A lot of the time he’s inside either a car stuck in traffic, or in buildings, and he works in a windowless room far underground in artificial light. So whilst he’s not an outcast to society, his world feels limited and bleak. In contrast, the outcast in part four has escaped from Iranian society. He’s been forced to live off the land far from civilization because he resisted. But his world also feels more free for it. His story is full of natural light and wide expansive shots of the landscape. His world feels more free despite his political status because he stood up for what he believed in. His spiritual freedom is reflected in his bright world. In him, the director shows he favors those who resist.

Head to our AFI Fest Hub for more reviews and short films from AFI Fest 2020.

Beatriz’s War – Melodrama Following the Indonesian Occupation