Forbidden Lie$

Rating:

* * * *

Verdict:

Riveting Australian documentary about a literary hoax becomes
a study of the relationship between filmmaker and subject.

The best documentary filmmakers realise that they are characters in their own films whether they like it or not.

Broinowski was smart and brave enough to know that even when she started to become the subject of her own film, there was no going back.

Ostensibly the film is about writer Norma Khouri, whose best-selling memoir,

Forbidden Love

, about an honour killing in Jordan, was exposed as fake by Sydney journalist Malcolm Knox in 2004.

Broinowski takes Khouri back to Jordan to prove her case and captures on film the process by which Khouri seeks to string the filmmaker along.

The film, which won best-documentary prize at the Australian film awards, is full of head-spinning surprises but it becomes much more than an examination of the eerily plausible Khouri's claims: its real theme is Broinowski's credibility and credulity _ and ours too. Excellent.

Peter Calder

Director:

Anna Broinowski

Running time:

108 mins

Rating:

M (contains violence and offensive language)

Screening:

Rialto