Forbidden Lie$

***½
Australia

Comfortably the most compelling Australian picture of the season, Anna Broinowski’s documentary inspects the case of author Norma Khouri, who sold her Jordanian-honour-killing exposé ‘Forbidden Love’ as an autobiographical piece until a pair of diligent Aussie reporters discovered she was in fact an American con-artist wanted by the FBI. In the beguiling, confounding, continually shape-shifting Khouri, Broinowski stumbled upon a goldmine – the woman is compulsive viewing on her own, so all the cutesy flash montages and chapter sub-headings that Broinowski piles on tend to distract from the story more than they jazz it up. And though it’s a polished and expensive-looking piece of work, there is nothing inherently cinematic about the way it's been put together. But with such a dazzling, twist-ladden, larger-than-life tale, it’s enough that you’re able to follow the multiple lies-within-lies-within-lies (not to mention that you’re given the opportunity to watch Khouri in interview) and Broinowski ought to be praised for that.