Her Pot, or Not?

What Schapelle Corby lacks in originality, she makes up for in conviction. Corby, an Australian beauty with piercing turquoise eyes, was arrested in 2004 when she arrived at an airport on the Indonesian island of Bali with 10 pounds of marijuana in her luggage. In Bali, the harshest penalty for such an offense is death by firing squad. She casts those eyes at you and plaintively, tearfully, offers the most banal explanation imaginable—it's not mine! But is this because the truth often is banal, or is Corby the ultimate con woman, so cunning as to offer a defense that seems too inept to be a lie?

This is the question at the heart of "Ganja Queen," a documentary now airing on HBO. Filmmaker Janine Hosking captures Corby's trial and its aftermath, showing how Corby was put in an untenable position by her family and other surrogates, all of whom make themselves liabilities to her defense. Using dour title cards, Hosking points out the flaws in the prosecution's case and tries to depict Corby's trial as a perversion of justice. Hosking doesn't totally succeed in that regard—by the end I felt unconvinced of Corby's innocence—but the questions she raises with her muckraking are far more interesting and broad than the Corby case.

For example, when a person is convicted of a crime in another country, particularly one with harsh or unusual sentencing policies, how much should that person's government do to intervene? John Howard, Australia's prime minister at the time, is hesitant to involve himself in Corby's defense, only offering minimal support. Corby and her family plead with Howard to lobby on her behalf, but his position is that it is a country's sovereign right to mete out justice to those who break its laws, no matter where they hail from. "Queen" glosses over the ethical and political briar patch created by international tourist arrests, a topic that has been well-served by scripted films like "Return to Paradise" and "Brokedown Palace."

The film also misses its opportunity to gauge the effect of public opinion on the disposition of a trial. Hosking implies that Prime Minister Howard is interested in Corby's case only when it shows that Australia's public opinion is dramatically in her favor. But later, when revelations about the Corby family's tattered past are uncovered, there is no attention paid to how they color public opinion of her. In the film, Hosking shows a survey that finds over 90 percent of Australians are convinced of her innocence. This week, the Sydney Morning Herald reported a new study that shows a slight majority is convinced of her guilt. What happened in between, and what was the tipping point? "Queen" never provides it, nor does it provide any insights to how the Balinese people viewed the case.

"Ganja Queen" is reasonably engrossing as a portrait of a family implosion but hints at potential issues that it doesn't quite reach. As many fascinating topics as Hosking flicks at, it's unfortunate that she doesn't go far enough in addressing them.

© 2008