A vivid account of an atrocity that turned paradise into hell: CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews last night’s television show
Bali 2002
Jamie cooks the Mediterranean
The fact that terror drama Bali 2002 (ITV1) aired on one of the hottest nights of the year only added to the dank atmosphere of foreboding.
Onlookers, sweating from the heat, could only imagine what it must have been like in this Indonesian tourist resort in the hours before two bombs exploded, killing dozens of holidaymakers at local nightspots.
Little else was left to the imagination in this vivid and gory account of the bombings. Claudia Jessie led an ensemble cast as Polly, a financial trader on her honeymoon with husband Dan and about a dozen of her closest friends.
We didn’t learn much about Polly and Dan other than that they met on vacation in Bali and loved the place so much that they wanted to share it with their wedding guests. There were glimpses of Polly’s tough, no-nonsense side and her lack of sentimentality – making her pain all the more shocking as she lay in a chaotic hospital ward crying out for her dead husband.
Little else was left to the imagination in this vivid and gory account of the bombings
This four-part Australian production worked quickly to introduce as many victims as possible without overwhelming us or losing sight of the most important point: that everyone who was hurt or died was loved by someone. These people weren’t just statistics.
We met a few footballers and a few Australian girls on a shopping and cocktail trip, but the story didn’t stick with any of them for long. In the end, the focus shifted to those who arrived later, including a doctor and an anesthesiologist, who cut short their vacation to offer whatever help they could at the hospital.
No sooner had the explosion stopped ringing in our ears than a political perspective began to take shape, and the Australian government intervened with a lack of diplomatic skill.
One of the difficulties of a true drama about terrorism is to show that the murderers were human too, to simultaneously condemn and not glorify them.
If mishandled, the results can be deplorable – such as the 2017 Channel 4 drama The State, which portrayed young British Muslims who joined IS as idealists resorting to desperate measures to be driven.
As soon as the explosion stopped ringing in our ears, a political perspective began to take shape
Bali 2002 showed how the two suicide bombers were brainwashed and manipulated by a shady cult leader. Everyone was almost paralyzed with terror before they pulled the trigger. They were pathetic, but not evil.
Balancing this was Sri Ayu Jati Kartika, the young wife of a nightclub bartender. She opened with a tearful speech, and in the most powerful and effective scene of the hour, she sang a lullaby to her children: A few blocks away, the bomb maker was soldering the final wires of the device that would kill her husband and so many others.
It wasn’t unrelentingly bleak: the camera couldn’t resist cutting away a few moments to remind us how supernaturally beautiful Bali is. But Jamie Oliver had the best prospects of the weekend while touring the east coast of Greece.
Jamie Cook’s The Mediterranean (Chapter 4) first took him to Thessaloniki, where he ate fish so fresh that the chef invites guests to choose their own fish from the fishmonger.
The sunshine cheered Jamie up. He managed not to say anything about the beef cheeks served on a long, doughy flatbread, but he did giggle about his “crispy bottom” as he toasted rice on an outdoor grill.
Jamie Cook’s The Mediterranean (Chapter 4) first took him to Thessaloniki, where he ate fish so fresh that the chef invites guests to choose their own fish from the fishmonger
And as he “massaged plums” on an island farm known for its hand-soaked plums, he became slightly delirious.
The farmer’s grandfather was a sprightly 103 years old. Maybe what they say about prune juice being healthy is true.