The Year of Living Dangerously

MGM/UA Entertainment Company | Release Date: January 21, 1983

7.7	USER SCORE Generally favorable reviews based on 28 Ratings

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lasttimeisawMay 13, 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“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.

read rest of the review on my blog, goggle cinema omnivore.… Expand

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SpangleJun 16, 2017

As a filmmaker, Peter Weir is known for making slow and contemplative films that one could categorize as a sort of mood/tone piece, while being wholly aesthetic-driven. Capturing the gorgeous surroundings of his characters and always droppingAs a filmmaker, Peter Weir is known for making slow and contemplative films that one could categorize as a sort of mood/tone piece, while being wholly aesthetic-driven. Capturing the gorgeous surroundings of his characters and always dropping his protagonists into deeply traumatic situations that force them to assess who they are, what they are, and how they will respond to this unique experience, it is no surprise that Weir's films many times wind up focusing on a character outside of their comfort zone. In Picnic at Hanging Rock, everybody is thrust into discomfort when girls go missing in the beautiful Australian brush. In Witness, Harrison Ford plays a big city cop sent to Amish country, which is practically a foreign land to him. The Mosquito Coast finds Ford and his family in the middle of nowhere trying to build a new society. Dead Poets Society dumps Robert Sean Leonard into an all-boys school that is dated and a father who hates his acting loving son. Fearless finds Jeff Bridges in a plane crash that forces a full re-evaluation of life. The Truman Show pulls the curtain back on Jim Carrey's false life. Russell Crowe is forced to cope with the seas in Master and Commander. The men and women in The Way Back must traverse mountains, deserts, and freezing temperatures to get back home from Siberia. Encapsulating various life experiences that finds everybody from every walk of life covered in his filmography, Weir's film nonetheless share commonality beyond just dumping characters into truly adverse life and environmental conditions.

This commonality is largely found in the singular truth about the world: life will be challenging, but how one responds to those challenges is what defines them as a person. In The Year of Living Dangerously, Mel Gibson stars as journalist Guy Hamilton. Sent to Indonesia, a country at the brink of civil war between the dictator and the communists, he is tasked with covering the events from the capital for the Australian Broadcasting Services. While there he befriends an Indonesian photographer named Billy Kwan (Linda Hunt), meets other journalists, and forges a romance with British diplomat Jill Bryant (Sigourney Weaver). Along the way, he sees people cope with the struggles of living in a brutal dictatorship with children dying from disease and people starving in the streets. There are beggars on every corner and no Indonesian is truly spared from the horror of poverty and starvation. Relying upon Tolstoy to focus the audience's attention on what truly matters here, Weir poses the question to the characters and the audience, "What then must we do?"

Everybody in the film responds differently and it winds up being how they are defined as people. Initially using the impending war to build his own career and benefit himself, Guy Hamilton disappoints Billy by not using his position as a journalist to save the Indonesian people by calling to attention their need for humanitarian help. When Jill gives him a tip about the impending civil war, he broadcasts it without her permission. He discards his duty to the Indonesian people consistently in favor of reporting news. Billy, meanwhile, sees the horrors going around him in his own country and decides to take matters into his own hands by protesting the dictator with a sign hanging out of his hotel window. It does not work, but he nonetheless stepped up to the plate when needed. In essence, both answer Tolstoy's question differently. To the question of "What then must we do?", Guy agrees with Tolstoy. Weir calls this out in a conversation between Guy and Billy, in which Billy says exactly that: Guy agrees with Tolstoy. There is nothing to do, for it will just get lost in the shuffle. There are larger issues at play that cannot be ignored and these people, even if given a meal now, will just starve tomorrow instead. It is a hopeless endeavor to try and rescue them without solving the issues that put them in that situation initially. For Billy, however, he disagrees with Tolstoy. He donates money and time to a woman and her ailing son, while taking political stands against the government towards the end when the former does not work. He believes in doing whatever he can to help the people right now without relying upon the slow, but long, arm of foreign justice as is the case with Guy.

Yet, while the film's a largely compelling and engaging watch, it nonetheless feels too much like a Casablanca wannabe. As some critics have pointed out, Weir was clearly inspired by Michael Curtiz' master work, but unfortunately, The Year of Living Dangerously is harmed by this fact. Tossing in an ineffectual and useless romance with Jill Bryant to the equation, the film winds up feeling too distracted. It smartly tells its story of Indonesia and the awful prostitute-loving foreign press, as well as developing its central theme about how to respond to such horror, but it splits its time with the love interest.… Expand

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