Indonesian film takes new look at Bali bombings

JAKARTA, Jan 20 (Reuters) It's a question still being asked more than four years after powerful bombs tore through two nightclubs in Bali, killing 202 people: Why Bali? The Indonesian resort island, also known as the Island of the Gods, was a place usually associated only with sun, surfing, Hindu temples, emerald green paddy fields and mystical rituals.

Until 2002.

Indonesian film producer Nia Dinata tries to answer this question in the ''Long Road to Heaven'', the first Indonesian film on the 2002 Bali bombing that shattered the image of the island.

The movie looks at the tragedy from different points of view: that of an Australian journalist covering the bombing trial, a Balinese tax-driver who lost a relative in the blast, an American surfer searching for peace after the September 11 attacks and, above all, the Muslim hardliners blamed for the attacks.

''It's a process of understanding, it's a forum of communication for this very sensitive subject that needs to be discussed with great sensitivity and respect,'' said Raelee Hill, the Australian actress who played the journalist.

It's a story told through alternating images of charred bodies lying outside the bombed Sari Club, once one of the most popular bars in Bali's Kuta area, and chilling images of a grinning Amrozi, one of three Indonesians on death row for the bombings.

Amrozi, dubbed the ''smiling bomber'' for his expressions of delight at the carnage caused by the blasts, said during his trial he welcomed the death penalty.

The bombings in Bali, which killed mainly foreign tourists, have been blamed on the Southeast Asian Islamic militant group Jemaah Islamiah, which authorities say in the past had links to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.

Twenty people were killed in another round of suicide bombings in Bali restaurants in October 2005.

''Will the result of the visualisation make the family of the victims sad because they are taken back to the event that caused the loss of the life of their loved ones? I think this is unavoidable,'' director Enison Sinaro said in a statement.

''But I can guarantee one thing, that we are not exploiting it. There are many lessons we can learn from the tragedy. We can understand more the reasons of the terrorists, as well as the feeling and thoughts of the victims and their family, the society, the foreigners etc.'' Last month, Indonesian censors barred a documentary on the bombings from an international film festival in Jakarta over concerns that remarks made by one of the bombers in the film could encourage terror attacks.

The producer of the ''Long Road to Heaven'', Nia Dinata, who made waves with an earlier film on polygamy, rejected criticism that the title appeared to endorse the belief of some Muslim militants that suicide attacks against the enemies of Islam would take them to heaven.

''I think it's really wrong and a rather negative judgment that the title suggests that the terrorists' actions lead to heaven,'' Dinata told a news conference. ''It's not as easy as punching or pushing a button to go to heaven. It's a long struggle, you have to embrace peace to go to heaven. It's not as easy as one two three, honey.'' REUTERS SY KP1015