For decades before the bombing, Bali had been a popular destination for Australians ever since a group of young Aussie surfers in the early 1970s discovered Kuta, a beach with clear glassy waves on Bali’s southwest coast not far from where the bombings took place.
The Bali attack has since assumed a key place in Australia’s collective consciousness as the focus of annual memorial services, evoking a similar respect to that paid to the Gallipoli campaign of World War I where thousands of Australian soldiers died.
“Bali is a place like London and Gallipoli where something of the Australian spirit dwells upon another shore,” said then Australian prime minister Julia Gillard during a speech in parliament to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the attack.
It is not surprising, then, that the Bali bombings have become a topic of interest for the arts in Australia. There are sculptures memorialising the victims around Australia. Journalists, police officers, and survivors have written several books about the event.
The story has also attracted attention from overseas with true-crime television shows in North America and Europe. Indonesia has produced a 2006 film, “Long Road to Heaven”, and even a comic book that tells the story from the perspective of three people: a widowed young mother, a volunteer who helped evacuate the victims and a terrorist who regrets his involvement.
Now “Bali 2002”, a four-part miniseries released on the Australian streaming service Stan to mark the 20th anniversary of the attack, is the latest addition. It tells the story of the tragedy from the perspective of different characters, both Indonesian and Australian, as their fates unfold and intersect.
Unfortunately, “Bali 2002” starts weak before hitting its stride in later episodes. This production begins with the unknowing victims packing their bags for a dream holiday that will turn into their worst nightmare.
It represents a master class in corny Australian soap opera and the lame acting that accompanies it. The later recurring scenes at hospitals where victims and their families deal with the aftermath are also uninspiring.
But the scenes filmed in Bali are insightful. They examine the antagonistic relationship between Australian police investigating the attacks and their Indonesian hosts as they hunt for the killers.
“We have a job to do. Ghosts are distressed. Angry. Confused, They’re stuck. Our duty is to help,” says the leader of a Hindu procession who wants to trample across the crime scene, leaving hundreds of flowers and burnt offerings in their wake.
Aghast, the head Australian investigator, played with aplomb by veteran Australian actor Richard Roxburgh, tries to stop them. “This is a crime scene!” he replies. “We also have a duty to the dead.”
Arka Das, an up-and-coming Australian director, screenwriter and actor skillfully portrays an Australian doctor who happened to be holidaying in Bali and saves dozens of lives.
The indisputable star of the show, however, is Sri Ayu Jati Kartika, a striking Balinese actress with no prior television experience, who opens the series by staring into the camera and saying: “We should have taken care of our guests. I’m very sorry.”
Only later do we learn her husband was killed in the blast and she has been left penniless with two small children. The juxtaposition between Kartika’s character, who cannot even afford to cremate her husband’s remains, and the state-of-the-art medevac and reconstructive surgery the Australian victims receive is powerful.
‘Antagonistic relationship’
The series picks up the pace in the last episode when Amrozi Nurhasyim and two other Bali bombers go on trial. Their terrorist colleagues stage bombing attacks in Jakarta and Bali in a futile attempt to turn the public against the trial. In 2008, the trio were executed by firing squad.
Critics have found fault with the series, due largely to the lack of anything resembling dramatic tension before the bombs go off. The “Guardian” described “Bali 2002” as “out of its depth”, explaining that it “feels like a very loose simulation of historical events”.
Although a bilingual production, the series is unlikely to attract many Indonesian viewers because of its on-again, off-gain colonial portrayal of Bali as a resort island and its Australian-centric view of the tragedy.
But the series may increase interest among viewers about Bali itself. Although the island’s all-important tourism industry collapsed overnight in the wake of the attack, Australians have since led the revival in visitors.
In 2019, before the pandemic, Bali was the most popular foreign destination for Australians traveling abroad after New Zealand, with 1.23 million visitors, according to the Indonesia Institute, a Perth-based think tank. Now that Indonesia’s borders have reopened, Australians once again make up the largest number of foreign tourists on the island, accounting for nearly half of them.
The phenomenon speaks volumes about the unbreakable bonds that formed between the two peoples. This sentiment was summed up by then Australian prime minister John Howard when he visited Kuta six days after the attack.
“As we grapple inadequately and in despair to try and comprehend what has happened, let us gather ourselves together, let us wrap our arms not only around our fellow Australians but our arms around the people of Indonesia, of Bali,” he said.