Observational documentary filmmaker Rich Bentley (The Stranger on the Bridge) was at a friend’s wedding in one of London’s most well-to-do suburbs in 2016 when the news broke that a man had been discovered dead on the roof of a nearby building. Carlito Vale had clambered into the enormous wheel well of a British Airways plane to brave the nearly 13,000km journey from Johannesburg to the British capital in the hope of finding a better life.
But the undercarriage of a plane is a treacherous place to shelter, exposing those desperate enough to try to freezing temperatures, vanishing oxygen and bone-crushing machinery that can also become white-hot.
“There was these parallel stories going on,” Bentley says he recalls the moment he realised that some 100-plus people have made such a terrifying attempt. “On one hand, my best friend was getting married. On the other, someone had fallen out of the bottom of a plane, and it had literally gone over the top of my head. I wanted to find out who the person was behind the story.”
Little did Bentley realise that the quest to discover more about Vale’s life, and hopefully track down another man who travelled with him and miraculously survived, would take over almost six years of his life. The result is profoundly moving documentary, The Man Who Fell from the Sky.
The search takes him to Liverpool in northern England, Amsterdam, and Beira, in Mozambique, where Vale was raised in an orphanage. It’s here that Bentley meets Jose Cardoso, one of Vale’s childhood friends, who gives some insight into what it was like for them growing up in the aftermath of the country’s bloody civil war that claimed one million lives.
Richard Bentley in Mozambique, on the quest for answers. Source: SIlverlining TV
Speaking affectionately of his “strong, clever,” friend, who he saw as a brother, Cardoso also accompanies Bentley to meet with Vale’s widow Anna and their 11-year-old daughter Shamila. “I was aware that the trip to Mozambique might be quite challenging, but I didn’t realise just how emotional it would be,” Bentley says of this heart-rending encounter.
Worried about the emotional impact of his visit, Anna assures him that it’s important. “I am grateful for all the people who continue to realise that he was a human being,” she says.
Too easy to turn away
‘The Man Who Fell from the Sky’ . Source: SIlverlining TV
It’s hard not to see the echoes in Australia that have only intensified since the Tampa incident under then Prime Minister John Howard.
And yet, things weren’t always this way, even in the darkest days of the White Australia policy. Bentley points to . The first known case of a plane wheel stowaway, Wie made the hazardous journey from Kupang airport to Darwin in 1946 after the Japanese occupation during WWII. After the teen arrived with brutal injuries, NT administrator Arthur ‘Mick’ Driver took a personal interest in Wie’s wellbeing, employing him, sending him to school, and ultimately finding an adoptive family.
While there was some pushback claiming, much like today, that the kindness would lead to an inundation of refugees, the vast majority of folks were supportive. “He was labelled a sort of miracle child,” Bentley says. “He was seen as this vulnerable individual who’d been through this awful experience, and I just thought, how on earth can we get from that story to the news today? And what does that say about society?”
And yet, for all the awful rhetoric around refugees, Bentley’s search for information about Vale and the mysterious survivor (without giving too much away, it's very much worth watching to see what happens on that front) also brought him into contact with the unexpected kindness of strangers. “As soon as I scratched the surface, I found a lot of people that cared,” Bentley says.
Rich and Justin in ‘The Man Who Fell from the Sky’. Source: SIlverlining TV
People like the coroner who tended Vale’s body, and also a pilot who had flown a different plane from which another person fell to their death. This leads to another powerful moment in the film, as Bentley clambers into a wheel carriage to see that daunting space for himself. “When you climb inside, you realise that there is absolutely nothing protecting you from the outside world, and the mechanism that retracts the wheels would crush you,” he shudders. “They’re absolutely terrifying.
“You realise just how desperate someone must feel, to do something that is basically a death wish,” Bentley says. “We hear all these stories, and we sort of put them to one side, maybe because we can’t cope with thinking them through any deeper. And I think we need to.”
He hopes The Man Who Fell from the Sky, featuring English and Portuguese languages, will help us all pause for thought. “We have a responsibility to stop and think about the individuals behind the headlines,” he says. “Especially with the pandemic and where we are in the world now. I would hope that we’ve realised that we can all end up in difficult situations. We should, as humans on the planet, take a moment to think about that, even if that doesn’t drive us to action.”
The Man Who Fell from the Sky airs 8.25pm Wednesday 26 October on SBS VICELAND and will then be available at SBS On Demand for 30 days.
