Crime, Punishment, And Aspot Of Cluedo In The Dacha
Sydney Morning Herald
Thursday January 8, 2009
WHO KILLED STALIN? 8.30pm, ABC1: You! The boy in the green blazer! Out with it, laddie! If someone did indeed kill Joseph Stalin before the Grim Reaper could get to him, that person should be celebrated by the Russian people and the global community as a hero. Conventional wisdom has it that the repugnant old fiend pegged out from the effects of a stroke after a typical night's carousing in his dacha in March 1953. This doco attempts to ascertain whether any of those close to the Man of Steel at the time could, in any way, have expedited his demise. Opportunity is more of a factor than motive given that millions of ordinary Russians had reasons a'plenty. The suspects include Stalin's daughter, Svetlana, whose boyfriend he eliminated; his unbalanced and alcoholic son, Vasily; his successor, Nikita Khrushchev; his comrade Molotov, the noted cocktail shaker and mass murderer, and the ruthless KGB top cat, Lavrenti Beria. Molotov, whose Jewish wife had been sent to a labour camp on Stalin's instructions, had ample cause to wish his leader a swift departure from the mortal coil. Jewish doctors, in the process of being purged during Stalin's final wave of terror, might have saved the dictator but even though the finger points most firmly at the disgusting Beria, the evidence is not conclusive. Conspiracy inevitably surrounds controversial figures in life and death. Speculative distractions can never minimise the magnitude of the excesses undertaken by this loathsome individual whose screen appearances during his lifetime were generally avuncular and heroic in depiction. The important thing is that he is dead.
CARLA CAMETTI PD 8.30pm, SBS: Carla Cametti is a young woman living on the fringe of Melbourne's criminal milieu who runs a private eye agency. Her large and supportive family operates a restaurant and Carla's professional life often intrudes upon the rituals and ceremonies that occupy them in the pursuit of their enterprise. In the first of six instalments, shot in Melbourne with a style and finesse the equal of Underbelly, the glamorous investigator (Diana Glenn) attends the funeral of Jack Kavel, an old friend's husband, killed by persons unknown. Georgina, his widow, asks Carla to look into the case but she declines - little realising she was almost a witness to Jack's abduction five days before his murder. Instead she tackles an apparent case of romantic desertion which involves her with clientele at the private club from which Kavel was kidnapped. Her presence attracts the attention - professional and private - of Detective Luke Gandolfi (Vince Colosimo). Someone with an itchy trigger finger is also keen to get at Carla, who uncovers worrying facts about her uncle, and her former boyfriend Matt - suspected by the cops of involvement in unsavoury activities. Everybody loves Carla but someone wants her dead. She has five episodes after this one to find out who.COURTING WITH JUSTICE 9.25pm, ABC1: The actor Roy Billing courageously submits himself to a process of trial and harangue in a blend of actuality and re-creation which illuminates how customary indigenous law can serve a community as effectively as white justice. The case of Kevin Rule, a Ngadju man killed in a pub in Norseman, is revisited. The 39-year-old father of nine died in an altercation with a hotel manager which, witnesses attest, was not of his making. The assailant was subsequently found not guilty in a conventional court, leaving Rule's family devastated and bitter. So a "retrial", conducted with a sensitivity to lore and law, is conducted with Billing standing in for the accused. It's a mixture of raw emotion, facts and re-creation in which elements of holistic grievance and retribution play a strong part. Should white people have an understanding of black law? Why not? Having an appreciation of it, as illustrated here, suggests white law could learn a great deal about punishment and justice. The doco is, if nothing else, part of a healing process - something that all systems of justice should, surely, try to embrace.
© 2009 Sydney Morning Herald
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