By Sandra Hall
THE CORRESPONDENT ★★★★
(M) 119 minutes
Journalist Peter Greste and actor Richard Roxburgh bear little resemblance to one another. Greste’s face is unlined, reflecting the calm and composed air he’s displayed in all his interviews about the 14 months he spent in an Egyptian prison because of his work for Al Jazeera.
Richard Roxburgh as journalist Peter Greste in The Correspondent.Credit: Maslow
In contrast, calmness is not part of Roxburgh’s repertoire. He has a nervy intensity that is equally effective whether he’s being funny, sad or desperate. And because desperation is very much part of the plot of The Correspondent, the story of Greste’s Egyptian experience, his casting works. You don’t care whether he looks like Greste or not.
The script by Peter Duncan – co-creator and writer of Rake, in which Roxburgh stars as the title character – is drawn from Greste’s memoir, The First Casualty. It has some added touches from conversations he and Duncan had during the writing. The aim is to put us inside Greste’s head during an ordeal that’s much like being caught in a maze. He is not quite sure how he got into it and the possibility of finding a way out becomes more remote as the months go on.
The action is set mainly in the claustrophobic confines of prisons and courtrooms with some flashbacks to an earlier tragedy in Greste’s career when a colleague, BBC reporter Kate Peyton, was shot dead on a street in Mogadishu while they were covering a story together.
In prison, the memory haunts him and while these flashbacks interrupt the narrative flow at times, you eventually understand the reason for them.
Richard Roxburgh as Peter Greste with, from left, Julian Maroun as Mohamed Fahmy and Rahel Romahn as Baher Mohamed in The Correspondent.Credit: Maslow
Greste’s memoir is subtitled “A Memoir from the Front Lines of the Global War on Journalism”. He’s making the point that his persecution is symptomatic of the dangers that journalists encounter everywhere.
The film’s supporting cast is made up of actors of Middle Eastern heritage based in Australia and the director, Kriv Stenders (Red Dog), shot the film in Sydney. This should not be a surprise given the action rarely takes us outdoors. Nonetheless, there’s something very alien about the setting and its atmosphere.
We’re in a place where familiar rules of logic do not apply. Greste’s arrest in December 2013 comes soon after he arrives in Cairo on a two-week assignment covering for a correspondent who’s gone on Christmas leave. He’s done just one story – a report on the clashes between the Muslim Brotherhood and the new, military-backed government – when the police burst into his hotel room.
He’s taken to prison where he endures nine days in solitary confinement before being reunited with his fellow newsmen, Mohamed Fahmy (Julian Maroun), an Egyptian-Canadian who’s Al Jazeera’s international bureau chief, and local cameraman Baher Mohamed (Rahel Romahn).
They are eventually accused of advocating terrorism and, during the hearing which follows, they learn that their lawyer will not be representing them because he’s just been arrested. So much for justice. But the trial itself is not nearly as fascinating as the life Greste and the others lead behind bars.
At the start, there’s a strong sense of camaraderie, but it starts to fracture under pressure as they adopt differing ideas about strategy. Greste and his family are intent on attracting the attention of the outside world while Fahmy wants to try working within the system.
Amid the gloom, there are unexpected acts of kindness from an unlikely quarter and, throughout everything, Greste’s brother, Andrew (Nicholas Cassim), and the rest of his family campaign tirelessly for his release but freedom, when it suddenly arrives, seems almost as arbitrary as the arrest itself.
It’s a grim tale and, as Greste tells us, it’s being repeated in jails all over the world.
The Correspondent is in cinemas from Thursday.
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