The Year of Living Dangerously (1982) User Reviews (124)

Sense of place, sense of menace

[damien-16 · 8/10 · 14 December 2004]

I am a little amazed that, so far, only 40 comments have been entered. Fortunately most are of high quality, and all the important points related to the film are clearly highlighted. So, I will not repeat what has been well said by others. I want to explain one additional point, it has to do with my personal experience but might be interesting to mention.

I'm a professional expatriate, living overseas for 25 years. I'm not talking about an American in Paris or an Englishman in New York, I mean African steppes, tropical jungles, Indian slums. Living in a totally foreign country, in a totally strange culture, imperfectly understanding the local language, bewildered by alien logic, you experience a permanent sense of unease. You adapt, you learn to cope, you make what you hope are friends. But you never forget that you are a stranger in unknown territory, and that you are vulnerable.

You may peacefully walk on the street one minute, the next minute bullets are flying all around you. In the evening you have a pleasant drink with your neighbour, in the morning you are arrested, accused of being a foreign mercenary. When you travel inland you come at a road block, not knowing if they'll let you pass, or harass you for a couple of hours, or confiscate your car. As a foreigner in developing countries, you are constantly confronted with uncertainty, an intangible menace lurking around the corner.

I find that TYOLD transmits this sense of menace very poignantly. Many people have commented on its brilliant sense of place, the accurate depiction of Indonesia and the events that took place at the time. Others mention that you get a very real feeling of the tension and uncertainty journalists in times of upheaval are subjected to. But I would like to extend it beyond journalists. The sense of menace in TYOLD is eminently recognizable by all who have lived in countries where the police is not there to protect you, the laws are not there to make society more civilized, the hospitals are not there to cure you. In TYOLD, the menace is made visible because of the troubles that erupt, but usually you do not have to live through civil war when overseas. Still, the menace is not less real, and the sense of foreboding haunting every expatriate was very convincingly conveyed in the film.

Riveting and emotive political-drama set in Indonesia during Sukarno's fall

[ma-cortes · 7/10 · 25 March 2010]

This excellent movie is set in 1965 Indonesia, when an Australian reporter named Gay Hamilton is assigned on his first work as a foreign journalist. His apparently simple mission to Yakarta soon turns hot when he interviews a rebel leader , while President Sukarno was toppling by pressure left from communists and right from military. Guy soon is the hottest reporter with the help of his photographer, a native, half- Chinese midget named Kwan . Eventually Hamilton must confront moral conflicts and the relationship between Billy and him reaches some problems connected with a British diplomatic attaché , at the same time the political upheaval takes place in coup détat.

Mel Gibson is good as correspondent covering a conflict and finding himself becoming personally involved when he befriends a free-lance photographer named Billy Kwan and falling for a beautiful Embassy assistant, a mesmerizing Sigourney Weaver .The movie has its touching moments found primarily in the superb supporting performances as Michael Murphy as lively journalist , Bill Kerr as veteran Colonel and of course diminutive Linda Hunt who steals the show as sensible photographer in her Academy Award-winning character, a woman acting a man, and well deservedly prized. Moving and intimate musical score though composed by synthesizer by Maurice Jarre. Atmospheric cinematography that adequate as a mood-piece by Russell Boyd.

The motion picture is stunningly directed by Australian director Peter Weir who achieved several hits (Witness, Gallipoli, The last wave) and some flop (Mosquito coast, The plumber). The movie belongs to sub-genre that abounded in the 80s about reporters around the world covering dangerous political conflicts , such as Nicaragua in ¨Under fire¨ by Robert Spottswoode with Nick Nolte , Gene Hackman and Joanna Cassidy, Salvador in ¨Salvador¨ by Oliver Stone with James Woods and James Belushi, and Libano in ¨Deadline¨ by Nathaliel Gutman with Christopher Walken and Hywel Bennett. These movies are very much in the vein of ¨The year of living dangerously¨.

Political Intrigue and Fiery Romance a great mix

[pc95 · 8/10 · 6 July 2007]

Peter Weir's "Year of Living Dangerously" is one of the best 80s foreign dramas available. It stars an up and coming Mel Gibson in the middle of a politically volatile setting in 1960s Indonesia. Mel Gibson acts young, alive, and foolish as an Australian journalist Guy Hamilton in a country impoverished with a power struggle about to erupt between a communist type faction and the local in-power dictatorship. As a well done secondary plot, I found Gibsons's romance with Sigourney Weaver particularly enthralling about the middle 30 min of the movie, especially 2 scenes where career and relationship runs head-on at odds - and leading up to that with Weaver walking in the tropical rain amid squalor while contemplating that communicates atmosphere and feeling to perfection together. As a third supporting character, Linda Hunt's Billy does well as sort of a dismayed but hopeful dwarf journalist, and an on-looking supporter of the impoverished. The movie captures political tension very well as it does the setting - a hot, humid southeastern Asia(filmed in Phillipines and Australia) marred by inhumane living conditions and famine. Towards the end, one of the local characters remarks "Westerners don't have answers anymore"....almost 25 yrs after this movie, this still rings true. Excellent settings, characters, and intrigue along with mostly good music.

Despite some weaknesses, a strong movie

[Geofbob · 16 July 2001]

Peter Weir's movie, set in Sukarno's Indonesia in 1965, can be seen as four films in one. The first is socio-political, focusing on the plight of the impoverished Indonesian people, the impending insurrection by the communist movement, and the bloody, chaotic aftermath of the coup. The second, coloured in Graham Greene-ish tones, has a cast of western journalists and diplomats failing to make sense of what's happening around them, and falling back on sex, drink and cynicism. The third - and most important in commercial-cinema terms - is a convincingly acted romance between rookie foreign correspondent Guy Hamilton (Mel Gibson) and British diplomat Jill Bryant (Sigourney Weaver), culminating in an unlikely and sentimental ending to the film.

But it is the fourth of these "sub-movies" which is the most intriguing; this concerns the diminutive and enigmatic Australian/Chinese photographer Billy Kwan, an astonishing - and Oscar winning - portrayal by actress Linda Hunt. Billy sees himself as a puppet-master, pulling the strings of friends and colleagues, particularly of Jill and Guy, whom he throws together. But his need to take control also motivates him to help local people, not through indirect and political means, but directly like an early Christian, and this apparently benign course leads to tragedy. Billy is the true heart and conscience of this film.

Weir is not entirely successful in weaving these strands together, and leaves a few gaps in both plot and characterisation. He is also occasionally guilty of melodrama (a fault which, in the movie, Jill warns Guy about), especially in the film's closing scenes - though certainly not where he shows communist sympathisers being shot, which is factual. On the whole, however, the movie works on both commercial and artistic levels, and should be seen.

Would have been far more absorbing with Kwan at its centre

[tomgillespie2002 · 6/10 · 3 December 2017]

Peter Weir's The Year of Living Dangerously is now an Australian classic and, along with the likes of Panic at Hanging Rock and Gallipoli, helped establish Weir as a film-maker to watch our for and eased his inevitable transition to Hollywood. Living Dangerously may now be a more obviously flawed film in 2017 than it was back in '82, but it still retains a sense of raw power stemming from an uncanny sense of place and danger. The setting is Indonesia, 1965, and President Sukarno's grasp on power is quickly fading. It's the eve of his overthrowing by the military and the communist purge that quickly followed, and journalists in Jakarta huddle in sweaty bars, feeding on scraps thrown to them by Sukarno, knocking back beers and chasing tail to pass the time.

The last guy left in a hurry, so young Australian foreign correspondent Guy Hamilton (Mel Gibson) arrives in Jakarta without a single informant or friend to lean on. The diplomats and fellow journalists who inhabit the same bar every night take no pity on him, but sympathetic Chinese-Australian dwarf named Billy Kwan sees something in the handsome, chain-smoking young man and decides to help him. Kwan believes strongly in Sukarno, the President his own people has dubbed the 'Puppet Master' due to his ability to keep the peace between the Communist Party and the military, and that he will save his poverty-stricken people from starvation. As well as setting up a key interview for the young journalist, he also introduces Hamilton to Jill Bryant (Sigourney Weaver), a beautiful assistant working for the British embassy. As the conflict heats up and the stories become juicier and more perilous, Hamilton must choose between his job, his lover and his close friend.

The flaws of The Year of Living Dangerously are more apparent now, 35 years after its release, as the idea of cinema's tendency to 'whitewash' is now more openly discussed. It becomes clear very quickly that the most interesting character in the film is Billy Kwan. He has a much more personal attachment to the events playing out, and proves a more charismatic screen presence than Gibson's blander outsider. He is also played astonishingly well by Linda Hunt, the only actor to win an Academy Award for the playing a character of the opposite sex. When Kwan retreats into the background around the half-way mark, the focus shifts to the blossoming romance between Hamilton and Bryant, and the film becomes far less interesting in the process. However, there are some terrific individual scenes. The initial excitement of shooting a violent protest quickly gets out of hand, and a horrifyingly tense slow-drive through a heavily-armed road-block will leave you holding your breath. Yet it's difficult to shake the feeling that Weir's movie would have been far more absorbing with Kwan as the driving force at its centre.

What Then Are We To Do ?

[ShootingShark · 6/10 · 30 September 2010]

Guy Hamilton is a foreign correspondent for the Australian wire service in Jakarta in 1965, who is befriended by Billy Kwan a local photographer and Jill Bryant, a British cultural attaché. Guy finds himself falling for Jill, but what will happen to Java if the communist rebels try to overthrow the increasingly corrupt President Sukarno ?

This is a very handsome old-style drama / romance set against the backdrop of war, and was the first of several high quality movies around this period about obsessive photo-journalists in war zones (see also Under Fire, The Killing Fields and Salvador). Gibson and Weaver are both extremely young, beautiful and expressive in it, but the real star is Hunt, who won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her extraordinary turn as Kwan. Only rarely are actors capable of playing another gender/ethnicity without it being either comical or disastrous, but Hunt is sublime here as the puppet-master of the film whose carefully orchestrated plans never quite work out and whose empathy with the suffering of his people is both profound and tragic. The setting is vibrant and unique - Indonesia in the sixties, having not long thrown off Dutch colonialism, and the power politics of the ruling National Party, the military and the communist PKI rebels. Whilst the film was shot in Australia and the Philippines (it was banned in Indonesia until 2000), it recreates the period in stunning detail - slums, sweaty cramped offices, seedy bars, plush hotels, poverty rubbing shoulders with elegance, Russell Boyd's terrific camera-work documents a country full of contradictions and possibilities. Equally good is the use of music, with Maurice Jarre's evocative ethnic percussion score, Kwan's love of Kiri Te Kanawa and a haunting sequence where a besotted Guy and Jill race home from a party to the strains of the Vangelis piece L'Infant, from his Opera Sauvage album. The film is something of an acquired taste I think - as a straight thriller it's not that exciting and it doesn't really have any big impressive set pieces. Where it scores for me is in atmosphere and mood; trying to recreate a place and a time and populate it with iconic characters - the idealistic writer, the glamorous woman, the enigmatic stranger. It may not be entirely successful but it's a unique and intriguing movie. Written by Christoper Koch, David Williamson and Weir, based on Koch's book.

Interesting but uneven, with lack of co-lead chemistry

[AJ4F · 6/10 · 8 August 2010]

I was intrigued by the title of this movie, with all the possibilities it carried, but it didn't live up to that atmosphere. I think the concept could have been pulled off with a lot more intensity and mystery.

I am confounded as to how some viewers could never see L.H. as other than male, with her old-lady voice, face and ambiguous form. When the name "Billy" first registered, I did a double-take. I had assumed she/he was a stunted woman from the start.

She's a good actress, but I don't find S.W. all that attractive (something about her jawline and build), so I didn't see the powerful draw she had. A more alluring woman would have made the film stronger for me.

A number of action scenes seemed reckless and unrealistic, like when they took the dangerous mob scene as a half-joke, and later smashed through the curfew barrier and got shot at, but nobody gave chase. Because of such casual attitudes, I didn't get the sense of "menace" described by other people. The swimming pool scene & dream was the sort of tension I'd expected throughout, but it seemed randomly placed.

The pending revolution was minimally explained, as if we were already supposed to know the full setting. That accounted in large part for the lack of menace I felt, but many films fail to give details that books cover.

Not a bad movie, but just not that memorable. I think some of the highest praisers had previous knowledge of Indonesia and were basking in the whole concept, not so much the movie itself.

Haunting, Sensual and Unforgettable...

[bragant · 10/10 · 7 March 2010]

Banned in Indonesia for nearly 20 years after its release, Peter Weir's 1983 political melodrama THE YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY (TYLD) remains the only film in existence set during the failed Communist revolution of 1965 which swept corrupt dictator Sukarno out of office only to replace him with the equally corrupt Suharto. The plot revolves around the coming-of-age of neophyte journalist Guy Hamilton (played by Mel Gibson before Hollywood stardom ruined his looks and bloated his ego to titanic proportions), recently arrived in Djakarta from Australia and looking to break big stories and make a name for himself - fast. Guy is befriended by ace photographer Billy Kwan (more on "him" later), a half-Chinese, half-Indonesian dwarf who has connections in very high places and believes in President Sukarno's benevolence. The political situation in the country is tense - mass protests block traffic in the streets while a Communist revolution brews behind the scenes and Sukarno's position grows more anxious by the day. Naive and self-centered, Guy sees his new world entirely through selfish eyes - as though all Indonesia existed only for his personal entertainment and enrichment. Guy is far from alone in this regard, as the racist and sexually-exploitative behavior of his fellow-journalists demonstrates (a scene in which one of Guy's colleagues takes his pick from literally a score of desperate girls all too eager to sell themselves for a few dollars is horrific). Despite the post-WW II setting, European colonialism in Asia seems alive and well, with Western diplomats and expatriates living lives of material abundance far removed from the miserable reality of Asia's slums. Thanks to Billy Kwan's connections and friendship, Guy not only gains access to leading political players - making his name via an exclusive interview with the head of the Indonesian Communist Party - but meets the beautiful Jill Bryant (played nicely by Sigourney Weaver, whose acting is better than her accent). Jill is an assistant at the British Embassy and as such, is privy to a great deal of classified information. The pair seem to be wildly in love, but is Jill more important to Guy than his career? Before the story ends, Guy Hamilton will see blood spilled, lose his best friend, learn that Asian politics isn't a spectator sport, and that his white skin is no guarantee of safety and security. Truthfully, TYLD is something of a misfire as a political thriller - somehow, the plot doesn't quite cohere, the period setting is less than convincing, and indeed, the political aspects of the piece ultimately take a backseat to what starts to become the real story of the film - Guy's loss of arrogance and innocence, the development of his relationship with Jill, and the self-destruction of Billy Kwan. Taken as a romance and as a character study, TYLD succeeds beyond its wildest expectations. Weir - always a master of that intangible yet essential quality called "atmosphere" - creates here what has to be one of the most sensuous films of all time. The heat of the equatorial air is palpable, the crowded slums visceral. As many other reviewers have noted, the chemistry between Mel Gibson and Sigourney Weaver in this film is breathtaking - the sequence where they get caught in a sudden downpour, take shelter in a car, and ALMOST kiss is to this reviewer one of the most erotic scenes in all cinema - and perhaps rarely have two attractive humans been photographed so superbly as they are here - so much so that one can overlook Miss Weaver's tenuous English accent, which comes and goes at intervals before finally vanishing altogether. Linda Hunt's Oscar-winning gender-crossing portrayal of the brilliant but doomed Billy Kwan is superlative - what, indeed, is to be done about such mass poverty and suffering? The Vangelis soundtrack is also brilliant - lush waves of synthesized chords wash over the viewer, making the perfect aural counterpart to the film's rich photography. The ending - in which Guy has to make a choice between his ego and his lover - is gripping and suspenseful. The film's slow, even languid, pace only adds to the hothouse and strangely self-contained atmosphere. This movie isn't just something you watch - it is a remarkable sensual experience all by itself and a reminder of the power and beauty that the screen can bring to the human face. This reviewer has loved this great film ever since watching it repeatedly on cable TV as a child in the 80s - there is nothing quite like this movie's atmosphere anywhere else. Don't miss this sexy and though-provoking work of art!

great exotic atmosphere

[SnoopyStyle · 7/10 · 15 May 2015]

It's 1965 Jakarta in Indonesia under the brutal rule of President Sukarno. Guy Hamilton (Mel Gibson) is on his first foreign assignment for the Australian Broadcasting Service. He is befriended by photographer half-Chinese dwarf Billy Kwan (Linda Hunt). There is an air of anti-western feeling. Guy is lost without connections until Billy starts helping him out. He has an affair with British diplomat Jill Bryant (Sigourney Weaver). It's a world of murky Cold War politics, secrets and trying morality.

This has a great exotic atmosphere. The movie has a sense of impending doom. Mel Gibson is terrific and shows his superior star power. Linda Hunt creates such a compelling character. It does need to heighten the tension a little. The plot meanders in this murky world. It needs a direction. Nevertheless I just love the dark exotic mood.

Politics, Mysticism and Romance

[ProfessorFate · 9/10 · 25 November 2003]

In "The Year of Living Dangerously" director Peter Weir attempts much and accomplishes most of his goals. It's a socio-political essay on the dangers of Western meddling in Third World countries. It's a fascinating view into the challenges of journalism in a volatile foreign country. It's a steamy romance involving two beautiful, intelligent characters. It's a distinctly Far Eastern morality play that seems to delight in yin/yang paradoxes. Plus it's one of the best films at evoking the mood, texture, and sensuality of life in Southeast Asia. Don't be too harsh on Weir for the lapses in historic accuracy and plotting, because it's a complicated, busy landscape he is painting here. The best things about the film are:

-Linda Hunt's amazing performance. Unlike other gender-bending performances (Julie Andrews in "Victor/Victoria", Dustin Hoffman in "Tootsie") you never once give any thought to the fact that this is a woman playing a man. It's a seamless transition and a performance of immense heart and honesty. The image of a distraught Billy pounding at his typewriter, pleading "What then must we do?" while an aria swells around him and the eyes of Jakarta's poor stare at him from his own photographs, is an incredibly moving scene.

-The atmosphere created by the combination of Russell Boyd's cinematography and Maurice Jarre's score. Take a look at the scene with Weaver walking through the streets of Jakarta in a tropical downpour. The effect is breathtaking.

-The chemistry between Gibson and Weaver. You can feel the heat between them. Unlike other posters here, I believe their romance is one of the film's strong points.

I agree that the ending is a bit of a letdown, but it doesn't diminish Weir's accomplishments. "The Year of Living Dangerously" is a startling unique film, and certainly one his best.

I can be your eyes

[petra_ste · 7/10 · 26 July 2014]

There are few modern directors I admire as much as Peter Weir. His movies have a lean, elegant quality; he knows restraint and the power of understatement. His use of music is masterful. He is a fantastic actors' director, getting from people like Harrison Ford and Jim Carrey the best performances of their careers - here it's Mel Gibson and Sigourney Weaver. Even potential miscalculations - like giving the part of an Indonesian man to an American actress, as it happens with Linda Hunt in this film - strike gold: Hunt won a deserved Academy Award for the role.

Even a minor Weir, like The Year of Living Dangerously, captures the sense of alienation - and exhilaration - of outsiders lost in mysterious places, a recurrent theme in the director's opus (Picnic at Hanging Rock, Witness, The Mosquito Coast, Master and Commander). Here it's Indonesia during the Sixties, as Gibson's foreign correspondent follows the attempted coup to overthrow President Sukarno.

Worth watching, like every movie in Weir's filmography.

7/10

A brilliant exposition of Indonesia circa the 1965 revolution

[Maruli · 9/10 · 17 December 1998]

15 years after its release, I finally get to see what to my knowledge is the only english-speaking film that tells the story of Indonesia circa the 1965 revolution.

A very young Gibson is convincing as the inexperienced but ambitious reported determined to make his mark in telling the story of Sukarno's last moments in power. Equally brilliant is Sigourney Weaver, and yet one feels that this film did not give her the opportunity to show her true calibre.

The one who ultimately steals the show, then, is Linda Hunt, playing the enigmatic and passionate Billy, who understands the true psyche of Indonesia better than any of the other foreign characters in this story.

When Billy solemnly expresses his disappointment to Guy, proclaiming, "I created you", it evoked images of Weir's latest masterpiece, The Truman Show, where Christof has fashioned the persona of Truman Burbank for his TV spectacle. Perhaps a running theme in Peter Weir's work? Must check out...

I marvelled at the authenticity of the setting. It certainly looked like Jakarta. The faces, the atmosphere, the buildings, and yet, those scenes were shot in the Philippines, with mainly Filipino actors! Just goes to show the similarity among Indonesia and the Philippines.

I see now why this film was never made available in Indonesia (to my knowledge). The last few moments of the film show the stark reality of communist executions by Soeharto's new military regime, horrifying pictures of mere pawns being slaughtered... and the parting message from a self-confessed PKI member:"Am I stupid for wanting to change my country's condition?" is one of the best lines in this film.

What then must we do?

[sharky_55 · 6/10 · 7 June 2016]

Weir's fascination with the mystical and magical has taken him to places where most filmmakers would never dare to venture for fear of obscuring or losing the audience. He is Australian and maintains that connection through many of his films, but has also stepped out of this comfort zone and into the international; away from the cultural cringe and tall poppy syndrome that raided our media and arts for so long and I think still to an extent does so. Weir is a good choice, perhaps not just for the geographical proximity of Australia to Indonesia and how he understands how to use the landscape as a way of building character (see The Last Wave), but also for the way in which the expatriate stumbles in his navigation of the new environment, buffeted by the cultural shift and on permanent unease and wariness. We sense this is something that Weir is quite familiar with.

A young Gibson is therefore perfect for the role of Guy Hamilton; an immature, fresh-faced reporter thrust into a role a great deal more important than himself, he has that vitality and zest that you cannot get with an older portrayal. Most people have gone through the same period - the one in which your future aspirations aim higher than the clouds and you feel ready to change the world. Guy is rough on the edges and easily distracted when he sees the white jewel in a murky, foreign forest, but initially, perhaps, he has those qualities. To the extent that he maintains them is where we lose track a little, but he shows enough promise to be taken under the wing by the local veteran, Billy Kwan, diminutive in stature but not in courage.

Linda Hunt's portrayal has been praised widely and deservedly - she in herself has created so many layers of sexual ambiguity and mystery that aren't explored, and ultimately the character is reduced to a rather pointless sacrificial lamb (she dies for a tiny, insignificant cause which leads nowhere except to highlight the moral danger that is all around this politically charged country), but she has done more than enough to keep us guessing long after her demise. Kwan is an extension of Weir's mystical; less person or dwarf, and more a creature of great passion and emotional capability that feels a sense of moral debt to those around him and goes to great lengths to pay it off. She is almost positioned on another layer from the narrative itself at times; the cryptic voice-over revisiting its own plans and devices and muttering on the happenings and progress of these...like a guide that introduces you to a strange, new world at the beginning of a video game only to chastise and take back its godlike power when you stray down the wrong path or kill the wrong targets.

But the message itself seems contradictory. Kwan bestows great responsibility and opportunity onto Guy - including positioning him with a make or break story that could potentially save many lives. But he also criticises him for his nobler intentions; he would give up the whole world for Jill, he claims, and has mistakenly thought that Guy too would do the same. Eventually he does go along those lines. After a rather tame rise to the challenge that rewards him with a busted eye, he rationalises that his love for Jill is more important and scurries away. Is it wrong to expect more of a character in this situation? The film poses so many questions of its political environment but shys away from answering all but the trivial ones. Weir's vision is limited by its caricatures, and in the end the noble white man has not even risen to the challenge, but run away from it (hand in hand with the fair maiden). And Weir, incredulously, frames this as an epiphany, as a coming to the senses.

Linda Hunt as an Indonesian Man?

[nafps · 5/10 · 19 January 2022]

Worst casting since Pacino played a Cuban yelling "Fush yu mang!" every few minutes.

No one Asian, or who has ever lived in Asia, or even has ever been around any Asians besides in restaurants or resorts, would find Hunt believable as Indonesian. Not the face, eyes, skin tone. Not the veddy British accent either.

It's like asking us to believe Peter Sellers as Charlie Chan...wait, Hollywood actually did that. OK, Sellers as Fu Manchu...oh, that happened also? OK, Peter Ustinov as Chan. Oh, Hollywood did that too.

Thank God it was only in the past...wait, there was a film with blond blue eyed Emma Stone as Chinese and Hawaiian? In 2015?

What made Hollywood so delusional as to like this performance, even giving it an award? Probably because of the White Savior message of the film, which Hollywood just loves. Her winning an Oscar was one of the worst choices in Oscar history, as bad as Traffic winning best film, and for the same White Savior reasons.

It's just as huge a mark against the film in that this story allegedly about the mass killings of over half a million Indonesians focuses on two pretty dull white people having an affair. That's like making a Holocaust filmmwhere you spend half the film on two gentiles fooling around.

Still, the film does have its moments. The Indonesian actors, scenes, and story hold your interest. But that's less than half the film.

ETA: I'm glad of the strong reactions to my review, both the downvotes and the higher than I expected number of up votes. Good to know some others feel the same.

Elemental cinema

[chaos-rampant · 17 April 2011]

I had forgotten what it is to inhabit the frame, that is to be immersed not only in the world these characters experience but in the sensations made available in it. To feel a draught of air or the scorching heat.

Peter Weir here in his best period reminds me again. His fascination in this period with the otherworldly is firstly Australian, that of a man awed by the mysteries of an alien, ancient landscape that trumps comprehension, outlasts our follies and dreams, then foremostly mystical, implying a communion with worlds beyond.

In this world answers are denied us, and we can only hear vague echoes of the questions we have asked. This is Picnic at Hanging Rock as well as The Last Wave and The Year of Living Dangerously, the tingle of excitement and fear before this enormous complexity to which we are only small and transient. The Hanging Rock here becomes Jakarta.

These visions of Jakarta, a veritable jungle of humanity teeming with passions and cruelties, he presents from a point of view that communicates alienation and fear. When our white characters venture out into the crowded slums, human misery reaches out at them with filthy gaunt arms. All this he doesn't merely document for the sake of political discourse, he stylizes as an experience meant to stir things in the soul. This also outlines Weir's limitations; that these visions are perhaps too tawdry, the savages noble and the gnomes magical.

All this in mind, the film is best experienced for me as a spiritual journey. But towards what?

A dwarf is our guide through this, an ominpresent being that seems to create the story we are watching, an avatar of the filmmaker's consciousness. He narrates our hero's arrival, then makes him see his limits by offering him his folly, the desire for an exclusive story. In a poignant scene early in the film, holding shadow puppets before a canvas screen, he reveals to him a fundamental tenet of Buddhist thought. How desire clouds the soul so that reality itself becomes concave.

This is not always perfect of course, Peter Weir is no Antonioni after all. Our hero eventually gives up the big scoop to pursue love, but this is accomplished through violence perpetrated to him rather than a personal realization that comes from having experienced the folly of the mind (which Antonioni brilliantly dismantles for us in Blowup). Lying halfdead on a filthy bed somewhere in Jakarta, he remembers the wise words of how desire blinds the soul, but is none the wiser.

He doesn't willingly give up anything, which is to say even if his precious tape recorder (the tool by which he records the world, seeking "truth") is snatched from him in the airport at the last moment, he has essentially lost nothing that he doesn't carry inside of him.

Perhaps this is the film's apogee then, that faced with a chaos and violence which outlasts them and reveals them to be small and diminutive, mere specs of sand in the cosmic beach, the characters of the film stubbornly remain the same, having brushed off that encounter only as an exciting, dangerous escapade into the dark side.

The weather reflects that chaos in Weir's films, acting as an agent of transience whereby the world is shown to be in constant flux and motion. But the characters are phazed little by this, anxious to pursue their desires and enact their little charades of meaning. When a tropic downpour suddenly rains down on them, they laugh and play in it.

But if Weir's fascination with the mystical is entirely white Australian, his cinema is elemental, Aboriginal. Here is the communion made possible.

The fact that he unerringly insists to submerge his characters in these impenetrable worlds that defy understanding, where the sole reward is a moment's glimpse of the soul in spiritual hazard, means that the glimpse is reward enough because for that moment the apparent reality is peeled back to afford us a gaze into a yawning universe beyond. This yearning for the mechanisms of the universe to be made apparent is in itself the primal, ultimate urge of these films. The Last Wave takes us on the brink and gives us a vision of apocalypse (a revelation), this one stops just short of that.

Top rate drama with distinct thriller element

[gcd70 · 7/10 · 2 February 2008]

If you measure success commercially or by international acclaim, then Peter Weir would have to be Australia's definitive flag bearer. Certainly one shouldn't overlook the likes of Fred Schepisi, Bruce Beresford or Gillian Armstrong, yet none of these directors have quite parallelled Weir's career.

His recent films have boosted his reputation all the more, but I for one believe he lost his way after "Witness"(1985). "The Mosquito Coast" (86) was a complete miscalculation and "Dead Poets Society" (89) a shameful waste that self-destructed at the last. And "Green Card" I have not even bothered with. Go back before '85 however and his films get better and better. "Picnic at Hanging Rock" (75) and "Gallipoli" (81) both demonstrated Weir's ability to totally involve an audience with the simplest of themes and the most 'human' of characters. "The Year of Living Dangerously" was yet another credit to this insightful director, a top rate drama with a distinct thriller element.

Mel Gibson plays Australian Broadcasting Service reporter Guy Hamilton, an ambitious young Aussie who has landed the arguably enviable position of Jakarta correspondent. What with the rebel communists planning a military coup, Indonesia in 1965 was not the safest place to be.

Chinese-Australian photographer Billy Kwan (Linda Hunt) takes a shining to Guy and so goes out of his way to help the enthusiastic journo make a name for himself, and a few friends as well. One of those friends is English diplomat Jill Bryant (Sigourney Weaver), and before long romance begins to complicate matters.

Our Mr. Weir blends the human drama with the political turmoil in seamless fashion, whilst importantly focusing on the people whose lives these events affect. His screenplay (co-scripted with David Williamson and C.J. Koch - on whose novel the film is based) helps in this regard immensely, as does the cast that bring the fascinating central characters to life. Gibson's Hamilton is always believable and we are readily able to understand his position. As Bryant, Sigourney Weaver delivers a strong dramatic performance as a woman who has carefully wrapped herself in a protective cocoon, but who yearns desperately for love and passion to come crashing in.

The show stealing turn most assuredly goes to Linda Hunt, as she plays the part with amazing skill. Her portrayal of the dwarfed, idealistic Kwan, who wants nothing other than to "add his light to the sum of light", is a wonderful achievement and a most moving triumph. Billy's secret personal files that he keeps on close associates makes Guy suspicious, yet they serve as a very interesting character study within the film.

Add to this Russell Boyd's captivating and compelling cinematography and Maurice Jarre's very effective thematic score and you have a drama/thriller that works from beginning to end. Brilliant Art Direction, Sets and Editing help proceedings become all the more convincing.

Wednesday, January 11, 1995 - Video

A love story presented as political intrigue.

[grantss · 6/10 · 4 January 2018]

The Year of Living Dangerously had heaps of potential. It is laced with heaps of political intrigue and touches on themes of government transparency, freedom of the press, fascism and third world problems. Yet, unfortunately, it is mostly just a love story.

The intrigue is there from the start, leaving you thinking this is going to end as some espionage-type thriller, or freedom of the press and expression argument. There's a Killing Fields / Apocalypse Now / Heart of Darkness vibe about the movie which keeps it going.

Yet, all these go nowhere. The climax is relatively anti-climactic, and disappointing.

This said, the journey was reasonably interesting, even if the destination was so-so.

Performances vary. Mel Gibson is solid in the lead role. Signourney Weaver gives a decent performance but I found it difficult to think of her as English.

Linda Hunt got an Oscar for her performance because the Academy thought it would be quirky and historical to give the Best Actress award to a Caucasian woman playing an Asian man. Her performance was okay, but not THAT good. From the start you think "Isn't she a woman?", and that doesn't help the credibility and purpose of the character. Kept making me think we were about to have a (reverse) Crying Game-like moment...

Features Linda Hunt's Oscar Winning Performance

[evanston_dad · 6/10 · 31 August 2017]

Peter Weir's "The Year of Living Dangerously" gives us an Australian foreign correspondent desperate to prove himself in his career, a marvelously strange character as his photographer sidekick, sets the whole thing in the politically tumultuous Indonesia of the 1960s, and then can think of nothing better to do with any of this material than focus on a boring love story between two white people.

Ah well. At least one of those white people is played by Sigourney Weaver, who is always watchable even if not given a very interesting character to play here. The other is played by, of course, Mel Gibson, who's not much of an actor now and wasn't then either, but is easy enough on the eyes. The movie's shining asset is Linda Hunt in the role of the photographer, an American Chinese dwarf named Billy Kwan, whose mysterious and ambiguous motives give the film what suspense it has, and far more than the "will civil war keep our two lovers apart?" story line that comprises most of the film.

Linda Hunt won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance as Billy, to date the only time in Oscar history that an actor has won an Oscar for playing someone of the opposite gender.

Grade: B

riveting, and this film is not aging

[L. Lion · 9/10 · 17 December 2000]

I just caught TYOLD again on PBS, not having seen it for perhaps ten years. Wonder of wonders, compared to many other films of the early '80s, this one is just as riveting as it was when I first saw it and doesn't look like it has aged a minute. In addition I am picking up many nuances of the film that I had never seen before.

What I know, and knew, about the tribulations of Indonesia in the 1960's is contained in the reels of this film. The subject matter is so far outside of the typical Western/American perspective that it is amazing that the film got made. Gibson is very good as Guy Hamilton, and his performance is much more lean and energetic than what he has done since - he hadn't had years of Hollywood gloss and Lethal Weapon familiarity to file down his performances into the predictable boxes they have become. Sigourney Weaver is elegant, although her English accent is never really convincing and sometimes disappears altogether. Linda Hunt's portrayal of Billy Kwan is astonishing and won her a well-deserved Oscar in an incredible gender-switching performance that was inspired casting.

One thing I never noticed before was how Billy placed each of the three main characters in their perspective as the Indonesian puppets he explains to Guy. Arjuna, the hero who can be fickle and selfish (Guy). The princess he will fall in love with (Weaver's character). And the dwarf, who carries the wisdom for Arjuna (Billy Kwan).

I haven't much more to say about this film aside from how much I admire it and recommend it to anyone who hasn't seen it. Beautifully shot, well paced, with good performances and about an interesting and important subject matter, it is well worth your time.

It should be Billy's story!

[lasttimeisaw · 6/10 · 13 May 2014]

"It is all opposite intensities" uttered by Linda Hunt's Oscar-winning gender-switching role Billy Kwan in this romanticised screen adaption of C.J. Koch's eponymous novel, THE YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY is a stereotypical westernised POV (intrigued but distanced from all recherché curiosity) of the far east poverty and political uprising, set in Indonesia during the notorious 30 September Movement in 1965, a coup attempts to overthrow President Sukarno, but the bloodbath is tacitly eschewed in this picture.

At the helm of Australian auteur Peter Weir (PICNIC AT THE HANGING ROCK 1975, 9/10; DEAD POETS SOCIETY 1989, 7/10), Mel Gibson plays Guy Hamilton, a rookie Australian journalist is sent for his first oversea assignment in Jakarta and ditched by his predecessor for any informative briefing. But unlike his fellow foreign correspondents, who are exploitive of the convenience of sex service and feeling apathetic about the country except when their own interest is concerned, Guy bears a compassion for the tribulation of the impoverished and he is a dashing go-getter, which is why, Billy Kwan, the local photographer of Chinese and Australian descent, gets close to him and offers him rare opportunities to interview political big shots in PKI (Partai Komunis Indonesia, the communist party of Indonesia), he finds a kindred spirit in him and the pair has fashioned many front-page articles from then on.

Billy introduces Guy her friend Jill (Weaver), a British Embassy officer, who will depart in three weeks, things go deadly romantic in any case, they mutually fall for each other, meanwhile the political situation slips and Billy is devastated when a boy he adopted dies, he becomes irate towards Sukarno's govern, and meets his demise heroically. Linda Hunt, the diminutive character actress, seizes her once-in-a-lifetime chance to render Billy a full blossom (a ultra-meaty role indeed), a supporting actress win is a cinch for her, actually one big blemish of the film is that it would be much more daring and fascinating if Billy is the lead in the storyline, there are so many unspecified back stories of her which would be far more arresting than the corny love affair between Guy and Jill.

However, it is not to say, Gibson and Weaver are mis-cast here, on the contrary, Gibson exudes his mega-star quality in a very earlier stage, his risk-addicted, devilishly handsome charisma overlaps Guy's defects in character; Weaver, first time embodies herself as a sex symbol in a foreign land of a paucity of Anglo-Saxon femininity, it is Ripley meets Mad Max, and they are in love!

Funny thing is Jill flirts with Guy about it is often too melodramatic in his articles, and in the same way it can be referred to the film itself, the death of Billy (always the most sympathetic one should be immolated for the sake of empathy-evocation), the lingering shots of Indonesia's destitution, children especially, on a cinematic level, it is too perfunctorily and conveniently designed, and considerably it is just not Weir's best offer.

One of the best of all times

[thegolfgoddess · 10/10 · 16 May 2001]

How anyone could have seen this movie and not recognized the depth of its social commentary and personal integrity is beyond me. This movie is written with power and intelligence, is performed impeccably and directed with cinematic genius. If you have not seen this movie, take time out to be touched in your head and heart.

1965, Jakarta, Indonesia

[valadas · 7/10 · 13 August 2003]

The year 1965 is running not very smoothly in Jakarta, Indonesia. Against the background of tension and struggle for power between the two powerful forces of communist PKI and the islamic generals, a story of love, intrigue, treason and loyalty takes place. Billy the Dwarf, little body but great soul, personifies the last one, finishing by refusing the world of disloyalty in which he's forced to live. Sukarno the then Indonesian president, champion of non-alignment, tries to achieve the impossible: to combine fire and water, Islam and communism. The former, backed by CIA finishes to win over the latter backed by China and a mass slaughter of communists takes place then. The Australian male journalist and the British (secret agent too?) diplomat woman live an agitated romance against the above mentioned background in which they also participate. The movie is only slightly focused on the appalling state of misery endured by Indonesian people in the middle of this struggle for power. Too much slightly perhaps and this is its weakest point. Anyway the story achieves its aim and is strong enough to secure the spectator's attention till the end. One last word for Sigourney Weaver's performance as a beautiful, sensual, intelligent and self-confident woman as always.

A Truly Beautiful Film See It If You Get The Chance!

[lalumiere · 10/10 · 7 September 2004]

The film is wonderfully sensate, alive and filled with exotic beauty and deep passions.

The colors, textures and sound have a dimensionality that draws the viewer right into the scene, the place the time... when it rains, the viewer can feel the rain, when the hero, Guy is being drowned in a dream, the viewer senses the suffocation...

The chemistry between Mel Gibson and Sigourney Weaver, as young lovers in exciting times, is breath-taking!

But Linda Hunt is the biggest gem in the movie, playing a little man named Billy Kwan. She is incredibly credible in this role. Few female actresses can believably pull-off playing a male character, but Hunt did it so well that, at first, the viewer feels a familiarity with the person playing Billy without realizing he is being played by a woman. When I realized it, I was totally amazed. Hunt is a great actress well-deserving of the Oscar she won for the portrayal.

The film is evocative and enthralling. And so alive, so utterly alive!

_The Year of Living Dangerously_ has and is everything a film should be.

1965

[AaronCapenBanner · 6/10 · 3 December 2013]

Peter Weir directed this account of the Indonesian revolution of 1965, which sees inexperienced Australian foreign correspondent Guy Hamilton(played by Mel Gibson) covering this story, with the help of a dwarf photographer(played by Linda Hunt, who won a best supporting actress Academy Award playing a man!) who has come to care deeply about the country, though will feel betrayed by its outcome. Sigourney Weaver plays an embassy aide who becomes romantically involved with Guy, who also helps him with the story, though events will spiral out-of-control, endangering all their lives... Moderately interesting film has solid performances, though the story is unfocused, and only sporadically powerful. Still, mostly worthwhile.

Flawed, miscast, unconvincing

[goldgreen · 2/10 · 26 January 2014]

Writing a two star review for a film that has an IMDb rating of 7.1 must look like spite, but let me make my case. Firstly, the plot line is confusing, quickly ticking off events from the book, without the viewer getting to understand their full significance. So we do not get to understand Billy's love of the Sigourney Weaver character, his bitterness as someone who has not had love reciprocated and thus his spiral out of control. We do not really get to understand Mel Gibson's motivation as a journalist either, only his romance with Sigourney Weaver. So, we do not really understand why he deliberately loses the swimming race with the British military attaché - (this was done to befriend him and get more scoops). This messes with the dramatic impact, meaning that we not only do not get to know the characters, nor the complexity of the political backdrop of Indonesia under a dictatorship with communist revolutionaries and Muslim generals. My second problem is with the casting. Mel Gibson and Siguourney Weaver are the fabulous looking Hollywood stars brought into attract an audience, but Gibson is wooden and wholly unbelievable as a foreign journalist. He overuses a cigarette as a prop as if that is the main characteristic of a journalist. He only comes alive when offended and given a chance for violence, (which explains his future casting in Braveheart/Lethal Weapon). Weaver gives a reasonable English accent, but the role calls for someone with a cut glass voice to emphasise how foreign her posting in Jakarta is. Similarly Linda Hunt does well as Billy Kwan, but why bother? With a billion Chinese on this earth why opt for a white female to play a male half-Chinese man?