Product Description

GUY HAMILTON IS A JOURNALIST ON HIS FIRST JOB AS A FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT. HIS APPARENTLY HUMDRUM ASSIGNMENT TO INDONESIA SOON TURNS HOT AS PRESIDENT SUKARNO ELECTRIFIES THE POPULACE AND FRIGHTENS FOREIGN POWERS.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1440 in DVD
• Brand: WARNER HOME VIDEO
• Released on: 2000-06-06
• Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: English, French
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 115 minutes

Amazon.com essential video
Australian director Peter Weir had made several excellent films before The Year of Living Dangerously was released to critical acclaim in 1983, but it was this moody tale of romance and political upheaval that bought Weir and star Mel Gibson their tickets to Hollywood. (Weir's next film was the 1985 Harrison Ford hit Witness.) Set in Indonesia in 1965, the film focuses on a group of Caucasian journalists and photographers who are in Jakarta to cover the political upheavals that are threatening to collapse the unstable government of President Sukarno. Gibson plays an Australian correspondent named Guy Hamilton who's determined to get the best story, and he's given invaluable assistance from Billy Kwan (Linda Hunt), a half-Indonesian, half-Australian photojournalist who knows the culture inside and out. Billy introduces Guy to Jill (Sigourney Weaver) and their romance develops in an atmosphere of political unrest and constant personal danger. This journalistic adventure is compelling in itself (and Hunt's gender-switching performance won her a much-deserved Oscar), but it's Weir's creation of a rich, authentically exotic locale that gives the movie its alluring and subtly mysterious atmosphere. A tale of tragedy and survival, it's also a story about fascinating people at a turbulent juncture of history, and the empathy they feel for each other and the culture that surrounds them. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews

Edited for TV
I loved the original theatrical release of The Year of Living Dangerously. I watched it over and over. It was a beautiful, sensuous film. This is not the original. This DVD was the work of some hack who left the best parts of the movie on the cutting room floor. Gone is much of the gamelan music, many scenic shots of Indonesian countryside, and one of the hotest make-out scenes in cinematic history. Just as Mel Gibson and Sigourney Weaver are about to go at it the scene abruptly ends. Even the sequence of the original is changed. The over all effect is a coursening of what had been a classic. This was such a dark and murky print I still wonder if I somehow got a bootleg copy surreptitiously videotaped by some artless thug. I feel angry and cheated.
I recommend waiting until the original version is released. DON'T BUY THIS TRASH!

Excellent film which works on many levels.
What is this film about? Is it about political corruption and intrigue? Is it about how revolutionary movements start by promising a lot and end by delivering little? Is it about the conflict between love and duty? Or perhaps the cynicism of the press and the various and conflicting goals? The film could be about how hard it is to overcome fear and superstition. Maybe it is about doing small things to make the world better, but then reverting to dramatic acts when the small things don't work.

Mel Gibson is a novice reporter for Australian news recently assigned to Indonesia. He wants to make a splash and climb the reportorial hierarchy. Billy Kwan (Linda Hunt in a stellar performance) takes him under his wing and educates him about poverty and teaches him to recognize the shadow play of politics. Billy also introduces him to Jill (Sigourney Weaver). They fall in love and have a wonderful scene in the rain. He commits a dramatic act that costs him dearly. (I don't want to give away everything.) Through it all we meet a cast of characters - reporters and diplomats - who are in turns fascinating and loathsome.

The movie is beautifully photographed. The music adds to the atmosphere. Since I reserve a 5 star rating for true classics, this film gets only a 4. However I do recommend it very strongly.

Contrasts and meaning
Peter Weir's film 'The Year of Living Dangerously' was shown at a campus film festival during my first year as an undergraduate (a few years after Linda Hunt had won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for playing a male character), sponsored by the departments of political science, journalism, and East Asian studies.

The setting is 1965, Djakarta, during a time when Southeast Asia was high on the scope of European radar and coming into more prominence for American eyes. Indonesia was (and is) a big country, with population and resources (both underutilised) the envy of East and West.

The dictator Sukarno was playing a dangerous game trying the balance the two, internally as well as in foreign affairs. In the end, it did not pay off for him, and Indonesia has only recently begun to work at achieving a prominence a resource-rich, 100+ million populated country can attain.

Into this tight-rope situation dropped Guy Hamilton (Mel Gibson), of the Australian Broadcasting Service, a fresh-faced journalist out to make a mark for himself, sabotaged by his predecessor and professionally ignored by other Western journalists (who had their own headline-deadlines to meet). However, a strange American/Chinese man, Billy Kwan (Linda Hunt), befriends him, and attempts to help him both professionally, personally, and spiritually.

Billy takes Guy on a trip through the slums of Djakarta, preaching Tolstoy, charity and compassion, and tries to get Guy to see beyond the headlines. Billy also introduces Guy to Jill (Sigourney Weaver), a British agent planning to leave Djakarta.

The tale wanders through politics, personal strife and decision-making, and the beginnings of revolution, climaxing with Billy putting his words into action and suffering a martyr's fate trying to get Sukarno's attention for the suffering poor, and Jill and Guy making a mad dash for the airport before the runways are closed.

Those of us with benefit of hindsight know that Guy could have stayed, the communist PKI in fact did not succeed, and he could have continued to write articles and make a mark. But that would not have been as romantic.

This movie is one of contrasts--the elegance of a British Embassy cocktail party contrasted with the poverty of the native Javanese; the cooperation of Billy against the ignoring of the other professionals; the native spirituality (which isn't exploited nearly enough) against the materialistic West (made worse when adopted by a native such as Sukarno). The music from Vangelis is an interesting accompaniment (remember Chariots of Fire?) and the cinematography grand in many cases. But subtlety abounds here--you may miss much the first time through.

This is an atypical Weir film (but of course, that may be an oxymoron, for is there a 'typical' Weir film?). Australian, but it doesn't always seem so; artistic, but it doesn't always seem so--there are many such attributes. Weir always tries to inject meaning into his films in many ways -- the injection didn't quite take in every way in this film, and some meanings are a bit overdone, but overall, there is a good balance.

This is not an action film (despite occasionally being categorised in this group). If you're looking for bombs bursting in air, look elsewhere.