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Reviews
Punitive Damage (1999)
This documentary is worth the ticket!
The movie reconstructs the story of the death Kamal Bamadhaj, a young neo-zealandese student that was shot in Timor East in 1991, during a march for indipendence, and describes the trial that his mother started before a court in Boston to punish his killers. Kamal, the youngest son of a rich family, was a student at the faculty of political sciences of Sydney. Despite his comfortable situation he revealed to be sensible to social problems, and interested himself particularly on the cause of Timor East indipendence, that has recently been approved by a referendum and has caused the very well visible holocaust not yet stopped by the U.N., that allowed one third of the Timorese population to be killed. He moved to the island and started to collaborate with the local political activists. During a march in 1991 the military shot the demonstrators and 271 where killed. Among them died Kamal, who supposedly was shot intentionally by the local secret services. The court (which was entitled by the american constitution to pursue crimes against humanity) proved the responsability of a few militaries and condamned them to pay for punitive damages (hence the title). The movie is very well directed and shocks any spectator with its detached look on a dramatic reality. Only the facts are shown (sometimes facts are stronger than any story), and the more the story is developed, the more the spectator feels near to this heroic student that marched for an ideal that was not related to his own convenience and was killed for it.
His convinction was that by helping timorese people we could help not only the stopping of a long term massacre, but also the growing of a better mankind. By the end of the movie few are the persons that are not crying and feeling admiration for Kamal Bamadhaj.
Just one suggestion, if you happen to be able to watch it, do it; if you can't just remember the name of an hero: Kamal.