The Year of Living Dangerously

Set amidst the turbulence in Jakarta, circa 1965, when Indonesia was on the verge of a coup, this award-winning 1982 romantic drama stars a young Mel Gibson as Guy Hamilton, an ambitious Australian reporter looking to make his name with his first overseas assignment, and Sigourney Weaver as Jill Bryant, an attaché at the British embassy—and Guy's source, with whom he soon falls in love. Linda Hunt, in her first major film role, earned an Oscar for her performance, playing a man—photographer Billy Kwan. A half-Chinese/half-Australian dwarf with a savvy understanding of power and politics, Billy remains an outsider but becomes Guy's local contact and brings him and Jill together. The political narrative serves as a backdrop to both the romance and the story of ambition, loyalty, and responsibility, but as a portrait of Third World poverty, corruption, and extremist groups using instability to increase their own control, The Year of Living Dangerously belongs with other like-minded films of the era, including The Killing Fields, Missing, and Salvador. An intelligent and handsome piece of filmmaking (the Philippines stand in here for Jakarta), this film helped make stars of Gibson and Weaver, launched Hunt's career, and brought Australian director Peter Weir to Hollywood, where his next film would be Witness. Out of print for several years, this is being re-released as part of the Warner Archive line of manufacture-on-demand DVD-R discs. Recommended. (S. Axmaker)