Balibo is a film telling two interrelated true stories. One is the story of five young Australian journalists in newly independent East Timor in 1975. After four hundred years of Portuguese rule, the East Timorese are left to their own devices. These television journos are there to cover the impending invasion by Indonesian forces. The other story, interwoven with the first throughout the film, takes place a few weeks later. Veteran Australian foreign affairs journalist Roger East (played by Anthony LaPaglia) is visited in Darwin by a young Jose Ramos-Horta (Oscar Isaac), who will eventually come to lead the people of East Timor. Ramos-Horta attempts to goad East into coming to back to East Timor with him and assisting him in making the plight of his people known to the wider world. Initially, East doesn't want any part in it - but after finding out that the five young journalists are missing in a hostile area near the Timorese-Indonesian border, Balibo, he changes his mind.

While the young journalists try to document the plight of the East Timorese so they can show it to the world, East has no interest other than finding the missing men. Naturally, East and Ramos-Horta are at odds from the beginning in terms of motive. But East eventually comes to realise their enemies are the same.

Balibo tells the true story that has been covered up by the Australian government for over thirty years. The indifference of the Australian powers that be to the slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent people, just seven hundred kilometres from Darwin, is quite astounding. It is only when the Australian journalists were murdered that the world began to pay the slightest attention.

The movie is based on the book Cover Up, by Jill Jolliffe - who is one of, if not the, leading authority of the case of the Balibo Five, which is what the dead journalists were dubbed. It is co-written and directed by Robert Connolly, whose previous directorial features include 2005's Three Dollars, starring David Wenham and 2001's The Bank, which also starred LaPaglia in the lead role. No disrespect to those two films, but Balibo blows them right out of the water. Connolly's co-writer on this important project was David Williamson, and this is definitely the best work the old Aussie playwright's been involved in for many years.

Balibo is a true achievement for all associated with the film. Considering the important and downright intimidating nature of the subject matter, it seems like everyone involved knew if it was done right it would be a true classic. And arguably, it is. Connolly's previous films give little hint of just how great Balibo really is. Obviously significant research on the real-life 1975 case has been a cornerstone of the script and the story has been dealt with passionately, precisely and sensitively. Despite the many opportunities to drift into sentimentality, Connolly stays the course, shooting the entire film in an intimate documentary style. The dialogue is realistic - stark when it needs to be and dense when the situation calls. The immediacy of it all is quite stunning, and the intensity and frantic moments palpable, especially considering most people who see the film will know how the story turns out.

The sequence of the ill-fated journos filming the invading Indonesian invasion, then running and being trapped by Indonesian forces, is one of the more heart-pounding scenes in recent cinema history. One might liken their situation to the final scene in Gallipoli of the hopeless diggers jumping the trench and literally running into certain death - or perhaps the final scene in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid when the partners burst out of their Bolivian shack into a barrage of gunfire. Except the emotion felt by the viewer as these men are shot down is one of utter devastation. These are real people who have been portrayed as such. You feel their fear. You feel their hopelessness. And the violence of it all is just as real and unembellished.

It goes without saying that the acting is excellent. LaPaglia is the best he has ever been as Roger East - the tough, world-weary but ultimately defiant Aussie journo. Oscar Isaac is a revelation in the role of young Jose Ramos-Horta. He brings all the passion, intergity and intelligence that is synonymous to the great man himself. Another excellent performance is Damon Gameau's portrayal of Channel Seven journalist Greg Shackleton. He gives his character all the courage, sensitivity and wide-eyed, truth-seeking curiosity befitting the murdered young newsman. If anyone is familiar with the actual footage of Shackleton fleeing a barrage of explosions in the middle of an outdoor newscast, Connolly's direction and Gameau's acting are both chillingly true to life.

Balibo should go down as a confronting piece of historical documentation, an unsentimental and gut-wrenchingly poignant artwork, and an Australian classic. Hopefully now the plight of the East Timorese will be recognised for what it was, and still is. Balibo is nothing if not an East Timorese tradegy. The real tragedy is that it took the murder of Australians in order for the slaughter of thousands of Timorese to gain any recognition.