Is Australia ready for a TV drama about the 2002 Bali bombings?

Bali 2002, Stan from September 25
★★★★

The risks of making shows about real-life tragedies are so high, the chance of backlash so great, that it’s a wonder anyone even tries.

Witness the opprobrium that greeted Nitram, Justin Kurzel’s excellent movie about the Port Arthur massacre, before anyone had seen a single frame of it. Witness the outrage that appears to have stopped in its tracks a movie from Gattaca director Andrew Niccol about the Christchurch terrorist attack before a single frame had even been filmed.

Saskia Archer, Elizabeth Cullen, Sophia Forrest and Sri Ayu Jati Kartika in a scene from Bali 2002.Credit: Tony Mott/Stan

Bali 2002 could so easily have met the same response – indeed, it might yet. But it shouldn’t, because this four-part drama about the terrorist attack 20 years ago that killed 202 people, including 88 Australians, is handled with care and respect and largely avoids the many pitfalls that might have awaited it.

It helps that it is mostly not about the deed or the dead, but rather those who survived. And that means it’s much less about the horror of the moment than the lingering trauma that follows.

We are invited to care for multiple characters who emerge from the carnage, though not all will make it. Those who do will bear the mental, emotional and physical scars for the rest of their lives.

It’s necessarily a multi-character approach, and thankfully a multinational one too. There are Australians, of course, but also English survivors (the Germans, Americans, Swedes and others miss out). Most importantly, there is an Indonesian perspective on the whole thing.

The focus shifts throughout: the North Melbourne footballer Jason McCartney (Sean Keenan) gets the spotlight for a while; English woman Polly Miller (Bridgerton’s Claudia Jessie) struggles with survivor guilt as the only one of her party of 10 to make it out alive; young Australian woman Nicole McLean (Elizabeth Cullen) is furious that the life she had planned – party, marriage, children – has been ripped apart; while Balinese woman Ni-Luh Erniati (Sri Ayu Jati Kartika) will have no peace until she’s laid to rest her husband’s scant remains.

Each of these sub-narratives is handled convincingly, and bears the clear mark of input from the real subjects.

The throughline comes from the hunt for the perpetrators, and here too the show treads respectfully. Graham Ashton (Richard Roxburgh) is the AFP officer sent to lead the international side of the operation, but he’s at all times mindful of protocol, of political and cultural sensitivities, of the need to take a partnering role with the Indonesians rather than trying to assume the lead. General Pastika (Srisacd Sacdpraseuth) is in charge; Ashton is merely a guest, doing what he can to help.

Roxburgh plays Ashton – who went on to head Victoria’s police force – as a man of infinite calm and patience, but he was clearly passionate about the role, and this project. He was involved in an earlier attempt to tell the story, which faltered three days into filming in 2005 when a fresh wave of attacks rocked the island.

It may well be that this is a more measured and mature take on the story than we might have got back then. Whether Australia is ready to hear it remains to be seen, but Bali 2002 deserves a response that’s equally sophisticated.

Stan is owned by Nine, the owner of this masthead.

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