The Year of Living Dangerously

B

The Year of Living Dangerously is a conundrum to grade. It's a decent movie, that's for sure, but it could've been great. And while the movie works as a whole, certain parts obviously misfired, and leaving the audience with unquestionable disappointment.

The year is 1965, Indonesia is in the brink of turmoil. Australian journalist Guy Hamilton (Mel Gibson) is assigned in Jakarta, and he is hungry for a story. Helping him out is Billy Kwan (Linda Hunt), a physically stunted but loyal cameraman and friend who helps him out with contacts and stories. Kwan then sets Guy up with a British Embassy attache Jill (Sigourney Weaver) who is to leave Jakarta in 3 weeks. Then the revolution started - the communists attempted a coup d'etat to topple the government, and Guy must choose between going away with Jill or risk his life for the biggest stories of his life.

Despite being a little too many things at once The Year of Living Dangerously pulled it off admireably. Like all Peter Weir movies, this one starts off slowly and (just like every other time) I didn't really know where he was actually going with all this. At one point, the movie's determined to recreate Jakarta of the 1960s, quite unsuccessfully most of the times. Then we spend a surprising amount of time with Billy, a fascinating character, indeed. He's a dwarf, and so he tries to live through Guy by matchmaking him with Jill, whom he loves. It's fascinating that Billy was played by a woman, Linda Hunt (she's the headmistress in Kindergarten Cop), who won an Oscar for her performance.

The romance between Guy and Jill never really soars, though. I get distracted by Weaver's on-again-off-again British accent too. Some parts of the movie seem detached from the main theme and hence they often serve no purpose, such as the scenes with Guy and Billy hanging out with fellow journalists.

Meticulous care has been put into creating the Indonesian atmosphere just right. The look of the tropical air is captured perfectly. There are big scenes featuring angry mobs demonstrating and purges, but they feel like Weir is shy to show us the bigger picture (because the film wasn't allowed to be shot in Indonesia). Establishing shots are rare, and they don't show much except the throng of people on a big concrete road. We do get numerous shots of the people in slums and squatters of Jakarta (or at least they are close enough in resemblance). In terms of a historical period piece, this movie is nothing compared to (to just name one off the top of my head) Farewell My Concubine.

Alas, this is just an Indonesian's point of view, who's spent most of my life in Jakarta and among its people; so I'm entitled to be a little critical about the details.
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