The Year of Living Dangerously (1982)

A classic
It is one my favourite movies..actually I could say it still has magical momments when a good story about journalism and love could turn into a classic movie...at the same time you get in a troubling time of Indonesia's History. With a gorgeous Mel Gibson...still young!

The Weir Touch with Atmosphere
"The Year of Living Dangerously" is my favorite of all Peter Weir's films. Weir is especially gifted in his ability to convey that intangible quality called "atmosphere" in a film, so that it nearly wafts off the screen. This gift serves Weir well in this story about a young Australian journalist on his first international posting in the volatile region of Indonesia in 1965, just before civil war erupts there. The film succeeds admirably on several levels: action, romance, character study, and political history. It has an intensely concentrated feel that is best compared to the smell of certain flowers, like gardenia.

Mel Gibson is Guy Hamilton, the young journalist who is sent out to Indonesia to replace his newspaper's outgoing, more experienced man on the spot at short notice. Guy knows that this baptism by fire is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and he desperately wants to make the most of it. However, Guy is hobbled by his lack of both experience and the contacts possessed by his predecessor and the other, more senior journalists in Djakarta. Indonesia, then under the repressive rule of Sukarno, was a tinderbox of competing political movements, among them a passionately dedicated group of Communists looking to overthrow Sukarno and lift the country's population out of its surreal poverty and starvation, the kind of poverty that few in the West have ever seen firsthand.

Against this backdrop, both terrifying and exotic, Guy sets out to gain access to the people, information, and stories that the other journalists have. He has a hard time of it until he gets a sudden break - he meets news photographer Billy Kwan, the physically stunted son of an Asian father and European mother. Kwan, intelligent and sensitive, and a fine photographer, is nevertheless treated somewhat cavalierly by the other journalists, and he sees in the yet-unformed Hamilton the great friend he has always hoped to meet. Kwan offers Guy a partnership: "You for the words, me for the pictures." And with that partnership, Kwan also offers Guy contacts that he has withheld from the other journalists. This allows Guy to craft stories that begin to establish him as a serious journalist.

Kwan also introduces Hamilton to his friend, Jill, an aide at the British Embassy in Djakarta. Jill (Sigourney Weaver) is actually the woman Billy loves, but he knows he has no chance of anything more than friendship with her, so he "gives" Jill to Hamilton, who, sure enough, quickly falls in love with her. Jill's response to Hamilton is equally strong, but she is due to return to Britain within two weeks, and is in the midst of a rather arid affair with her immediate superior in the Embassy, and she resists Hamilton's attempts to become involved.

With this framework set up, political and emotional developments begin to take on a life of their own, as the protagonists confront complex realities over which they have far less control than they imagined. Those realities challenge assumptions, generate tragedy, and force the characters to re-examine and realign their values.

The film has a haunting quality and the performances are memorable. First among these is Linda Hunt's performance as Billy Kwan, which won her a Best Supporting Actress Oscar. Her small stature undoubtedly suggested her for the part, but what she did with it surely surpassed expectations. The longing for justice and for love; the compassion and frustration; most of all the overly sensitized response to the world around him, are just a few of the qualities that Hunt brings to her characterization. It is Billy's persona, in the end, that centers the film.

Mel Gibson gives a strong performance as Hamilton, searching for glory and self at the same time, and opening up rapidly to the new influences around him, in the form of Billy and Jill. Sigourney Weaver is less impressive than the other two leads, not least because she speaks like an American trying to sound British, and it too often shows. And while this may be terribly sexist to point out, one of the film's flaws is that Mel Gibson, at the height of his devastating youthful handsomeness, is much prettier and more charismatic than Weaver - there is a lack of physical symmetry between them that makes one wonder what he saw in her. Weaver's refusal of Gibson's initial advances - how can I put this? - feels unrealistic and drew a few jeers from women in the audience when I saw this on first release.

Weaver is an intelligent actress and gives a sincere performance here, but it was an "off" piece of casting that tears a bit of a hole in the otherwise flawlessly woven tapestry. The supporting cast is very fine, including Michael Moriarty doing yet another turn as a shallow cad.

The cinematography is beautiful, the pacing and script excellent, the characters presented without judgment, left to evolve in response to events. Lastly, Maurice Jarre (who composed the scores to "Lawrence of Arabia" and Weir's later film, "Witness") composed a delicate and beautiful score that manages to incorporate influences as diverse as the sound of the gamelan and one of Richard Strauss's "Four Last Songs". The score contributes to the powerful sense of place and moment that permeates the film.

The Weir Touch with Atmosphere
"The Year of Living Dangerously" is my favorite of all Peter Weir's films. Weir is especially gifted in his ability to convey that intangible quality called "atmosphere" in a film, so that it nearly wafts off the screen. This gift serves Weir well in this story about a young Australian journalist on his first international posting in the volatile region of Indonesia in 1965, just before civil war erupts there. The film succeeds admirably on several levels: action, romance, character study, and political history. It has an intensely concentrated feel that is best compared to the smell of certain flowers, like gardenia.

Mel Gibson is Guy Hamilton, the young journalist who is sent out to Indonesia to replace his newspaper's outgoing, more experienced man on the spot at short notice. Guy knows that this baptism by fire is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and he desperately wants to make the most of it. However, Guy is hobbled by his lack of both experience and the contacts possessed by his predecessor and the other, more senior journalists in Djakarta. Indonesia, then under the repressive rule of Sukarno, was a tinderbox of competing political movements, among them a passionately dedicated group of Communists looking to overthrow Sukarno and lift the country's population out of its surreal poverty and starvation, the kind of poverty that few in the West have ever seen firsthand.

Against this backdrop, both terrifying and exotic, Guy sets out to gain access to the people, information, and stories that the other journalists have. He has a hard time of it until he gets a sudden break - he meets news photographer Billy Kwan, the physically stunted son of an Asian father and European mother. Kwan, intelligent and sensitive, and a fine photographer, is nevertheless treated somewhat cavalierly by the other journalists, and he sees in the yet-unformed Hamilton the great friend he has always hoped to meet. Kwan offers Guy a partnership: "You for the words, me for the pictures." And with that partnership, Kwan also offers Guy contacts that he has withheld from the other journalists. This allows Guy to craft stories that begin to establish him as a serious journalist.

Kwan also introduces Hamilton to his friend, Jill, an aide at the British Embassy in Djakarta. Jill (Sigourney Weaver) is actually the woman Billy loves, but he knows he has no chance of anything more than friendship with her, so he "gives" Jill to Hamilton, who, sure enough, quickly falls in love with her. Jill's response to Hamilton is equally strong, but she is due to return to Britain within two weeks, and is in the midst of a rather arid affair with her immediate superior in the Embassy, and she resists Hamilton's attempts to become involved.

With this framework set up, political and emotional developments begin to take on a life of their own, as the protagonists confront complex realities over which they have far less control than they imagined. Those realities challenge assumptions, generate tragedy, and force the characters to re-examine and realign their values.

The film has a haunting quality and the performances are memorable. First among these is Linda Hunt's performance as Billy Kwan, which won her a Best Supporting Actress Oscar. Her small stature undoubtedly suggested her for the part, but what she did with it surely surpassed expectations. The longing for justice and for love; the compassion and frustration; most of all the overly sensitized response to the world around him, are just a few of the qualities that Hunt brings to her characterization. It is Billy's persona, in the end, that centers the film.

Mel Gibson gives a strong performance as Hamilton, searching for glory and self at the same time, and opening up rapidly to the new influences around him, in the form of Billy and Jill. Sigourney Weaver is less impressive than the other two leads, not least because she speaks like an American trying to sound British, and it too often shows. And while this may be terribly sexist to point out, one of the film's flaws is that Mel Gibson, at the height of his devastating youthful handsomeness, is much prettier and more charismatic than Weaver - there is a lack of physical symmetry between them that makes one wonder what he saw in her. Weaver's refusal of Gibson's initial advances - how can I put this? - feels unrealistic and drew a few jeers from women in the audience when I saw this on first release.

Weaver is an intelligent actress and gives a sincere performance here, but it was an "off" piece of casting that tears a bit of a hole in the otherwise flawlessly woven tapestry. The supporting cast is very fine, including Michael Moriarty doing yet another turn as a shallow cad.

The cinematography is beautiful, the pacing and script excellent, the characters presented without judgment, left to evolve in response to events. Lastly, Maurice Jarre (who composed the scores to "Lawrence of Arabia" and Weir's later film, "Witness") composed a delicate and beautiful score that manages to incorporate influences as diverse as the sound of the gamelan and one of Richard Strauss's "Four Last Songs". The score contributes to the powerful sense of place and moment that permeates the film.