Human cost of crime hits home

Among the sold-out crowd were Fraser’s family, friends and former colleagues. Even the Rochester doctor who ultimately diagnosed her with post-traumatic stress disorder. Familiar local landmarks, including Echuca's historic Loco Shed and Moama Bowling Club, appeared on screen.

It meant every emotional blow landed that little bit harder.

In a genre saturated with true crime, The Policewoman cuts through the noise with a refreshingly different perspective, telling the story through the eyes of the woman who lived it.

Fraser is captured in all her raw, genuine, down-to-earth and deeply empathetic humanity despite the inhumanity she was exposed to day after day. Watching her pain unfold is visceral.

That is what sets this documentary apart. It doesn’t just show us the horrors of crime; it makes us feel the human cost of witnessing it.

Over 90 minutes, Fraser lays bare the invisible injuries which accumulated across a 27-year police career, including four years stationed in Kyabram.

The audience sees a young detective who once considered herself "superwoman" slowly consumed by the crimes she investigated, the victims she fought for and the trauma she was expected to, in the end forced to, absorb.

Director Claire Pasvolsky’s greatest achievement is resisting sensationalism. Rather than dwelling on the criminals, she centres the human being who spent decades cleaning up the aftermath.

Fraser is disarmingly authentic. Funny one moment, devastatingly vulnerable the next, she recounts the cases which filled what she describes as her metaphorical bottle.

The confession of the Box Hill rapist. The smell of burning flesh after a young woman set herself alight. The discovery of Maria Korp’s body in a car boot. Child abuse material no person should ever have to watch, let alone review, over and over, professionally.

Drip by drip, the bottle fills.

Then it overflows.

“My world was imploding,” Fraser said.

For local viewers, one of the most poignant moments comes when Fraser reaches breaking point and seeks help from Rochester doctor Dr Eji Ekeanyanwu. The diagnosis changed the course of her life and ultimately started her recovery.

When Fraser recalls handing over her police badge, or “Freddie” as she calls it, after being medically discharged, there is no dramatic soundtrack or manufactured emotion.

The trauma speaks for itself.

What makes The Policewoman so effective is it doesn't simply tell viewers Fraser developed PTSD, it immerses them in the reality of what that means: the triggers, the flashbacks, the loss of identity and the inability to separate everyday life from horrific memories.

Pasvolsky spent eight years bringing Fraser’s story to the screen and her unconventional filmmaking style pays off. Through intricate miniature sets and dreamlike sequences, memories are reconstructed rather than recreated, capturing the fragmented nature of trauma.

“Narelle has this ability to put herself right in the moment of the memory with extreme vulnerability, but also to put herself in the perspective of the victim, the perpetrator and other people at the scene,” Pasvolsky said.

“Whether or not you're a frontline worker, there is something which resonates.”

And if viewers leave shocked by what they have seen, the documentary has done its job.

“I’m sick of pretending. I’ve been pretending for 27 years,” Fraser said.

Despite everything she endured, Fraser remains fiercely proud of her career and the lives she helped change.

“The good far outweighs the bad,” she said. Sadly, the good moves on, the bad never really goes away.

That tension between purpose and sacrifice sits at the heart of The Policewoman and makes it impossible to forget.

The Policewoman will screen at Echuca Paramount from November 5.