Review of The Year of Living Dangerously (1982) by Andrew S — 21 Nov 2009

Superb period piece that shows us what the Cold War looked like on the ground in Indonesia. In the background, a seemingly progressive President who shows promise of making the government serve the impoverished majority, but who will soon be replaced by an anti-communist general and his Western backers in a coup that spells the death of a half a million Indonesians.

Seen through the eyes of an Indonesian, Billy Kwan (Linda Hunt), and an Australian reporter, Guy Hamilton (Mel Gibson), we get delicious characterizations of the dying British empire via a pompous British intelligence officer (Bill Kerr) and his cynical assistant, Jill Bryant (Sigourney Weaver), and of the up and coming US empire, via the morally obtuse journalist, Pete Curtis (Michael Murphy).

While Billy teaches Guy how to see the rank poverty and oppression all around him, Guy is pulled in the other direction by his desire for Jill. Further complicating the story, Guy deals with issues of journalistic ethics (how close should he get to the story, how far should he go to get the "truth?"), and Billy, increasingly horrified and furious at the poverty around him, and dimwitted Westerners seemingly oblivious to it, keeps trying to answer Tolstoy's question "What then must we do?" Like Billy, we come away from the movie knowing that there are no easy answers to that question.