Discourse Analysis Construction of Reality of the Balibo Five Case in the Balibo Movie

Film, apart from being known as an art work, is also known as an influential information carrier due to its emotional approach with the audiences. Few notice that film could be a medium for propaganda, because film constructs a reality instead of capture a reality. The film that will be the centre of this research is The Balibo, which was directed by Australian film maker, Robert Connolly. The film was inspired by the 1975’s Balibo Five case that occurred in East Timor. The Balibo Five is a heart-wrenching tragedy where five Australian journalists were found lifeless in the city of Balibo, East Timor. Since that day, this incident known as The Balibo Five case. The Indonesian claimed that five of them were killed because they were caught in crossfire between FRETILIN and Indonesian armies. It was not until 2007 that New South Wales Coroner’s Court (Australia)’s reinvestigation team proved that those five innocent people were not allegedly murdered but they were victims of intentional extermination. Through this thorough research, the writer is going to discuss the implicit, explicit or even a rhetorical purpose addressed by the director to the audiences by using van Dijk’s Discourse Analysis.