Billal
Directed by Tom Zubrycki
From October 10, Sydney Valhalla and St Kilda George
Previewed by Jennifer Thompson
Tom Zubrycki's new documentary is powerful medicine for anyone unconcerned about the effects of hate-mongering commentary by Pauline Hanson and her ilk. The documentary — depicting the results of an act of racially motivated violence — takes a very personal rather than social view, but is no weaker for it.
After planning a documentary project about the situation facing young Arab-Australians about to leave school in Sydney's west and their highly uncertain job prospects, Zubrycki chanced upon "an extraordinary real-life drama unfolding before [his] eyes". After initial contact with the Eter family — originally from Lebanon — for the project, the second of the family's three sons, Billal, was run down outside the family home during Easter 1994.
The violence occurred after a fight between the young Eters and their Anglo-Australian neighbours in which racial insults were hurled and the police finally called. The following day, a friend of the Eters' neighbours, Linc Beswick, accelerated his car as Billal Eter and his cousin crossed the quiet street in front of the Eter house.
One of the young people to be involved in the original project contacted Zubrycki, and his documentary quickly became a chronicle of the incident's devastating effects on Billal, or Bill for short, who lay in a coma with serious brain damage, and his family.
Life for Lebanese migrant Abdul Eter had not been easy. His first work in Australia had been labouring, followed by an uninsured small business that was destroyed by robbery and then extended unemployment as economic downturn bit. But nothing prepared him for losing a son as he knew him, and living in fear for the rest of the family's welfare. His wife, Amal Eter, was a reservoir of strength, devoting herself to her injured son while keeping the family going.
In the course of following the family's life over the course of 15 months following Bill's "accident", Zubrycki and his team show the changes in Bill as he undergoes a series of operations to alleviate the effects of the brain damage, including disturbing personality changes. Bill travels back and forth between home and hospital in the process of operations and rehabilitation programs.
Over the documentary period, the team become involved with the family as they struggle to cope with the shock and anger, including Billal's brothers' desire for revenge, and their battle with the housing department for relocation from the estate where Beswick still lives. Zubrycki makes no apology for this lack of mythical objectivity, but reflects their involvement in the family's life in the film.
Zubrycki's community liaison and interpreter, Alissar Gazal, becomes an important on-screen part of the film as she becomes friends with Amal, and goes into bat for the family with the housing department. It's Alissar who must break the news that the hospital has hidden from the family: that Billal will never recover fully.
A revealing aspect of the film is the two interviews with Beswick, several months apart, about the incident. While first recounting a version of events at odds with that of other eyewitnesses and sprinkled with racial generalisations about "Lebs", Beswick says that he was stoned at the time. The second account, closer to the court case in which he is committed for trial, exposes the process of memory — or forgetting — in which aspects of what happened are wildly exaggerated compared with the first flawed account.
The film, nominated for a 1996 AFI Best Documentary award, was discussed with the family and the final run given their blessing. Not to be missed. n