The Year of Living Dangerously (1982)

Today I've watched The Year of Living Dangerously, starring Mel Gibson and Sigourney Weaver, and set in Indonesia during a time of unrest. I've had to check Wikipedia for when it was set (1965) and for details about events within the movie, mostly because I didn't feel that I learnt that much about the country and the political situation after 2 hours. It's not that it's a bad film, or that I didn't like it, rather it seemed that you either had to know your Indonesian history going in, or follow very closely. And to be honest, I spent some of the time wrapping Christmas presents, so it was probably my own fault. 

Gibson, back when he was unfeasibly hot, plays an Australian reporter newly stationed in Jakarta. He falls for credibly-accented Weaver, a British spy(?), while getting stories and witnessing the political turmoil of President Sukarno's overthrow. While Gibson and Weaver are as good as you'd expect, the heart of the movie comes from Linda Hunt, an American actress in an Oscar-winning role as Indonesian man, Billy Kwan, Gibson's reporter's photographer. As I knew about the gender-bending role going in, it proved to be a little distracting, but it is through Billy that the viewer witnesses the poverty that exists in Indonesia, sat alongside the rich extravagance of the ruling classes, and the western journalists. Billy hopes that Gibson will help to get the truth of the Indonesian situation out to the world, and he engineers his meeting with Weaver and obtains some high status interviews. Sadly, Billy's idealistic dreams are shattered and he resorts to civil disobedience that gets him killed. Hunt is so convincing in the part, I wished I'd not known about her real identity going in. 

I came away from the movie impressed with Hunt, the different, intriguing locations, yet lacking much understanding of events. And the relationship between Gibson and Weaver never really felt that real or exciting. It may be that this is one of those 'worthy' movies, that you have to be in the right frame of mind to watch. I guess I wasn't.