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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
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T
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
Guy Hamilton (Mel Gibson) is a hungry young journalist from Australia who's just taken an assignment as foreign correspondent in politically unstable Indonesia to break out of a long stint in the newsroom at home. Upon arrival he is immediately befriended by the wonderfully intriguing Billy (Linda Hunt), a photographer who compiles files on his friends, finding solace from the chaos of political and economic upheaval by manipulating what he can in his life. Billy, who likes Guy for the inexplicable reasons that draw people to one another, helps him to get the break that he desperately longs for. The break makes him as a journalist, and the wave of confidence that it generates carries him into the seduction of Jill Bryant (Sigourney Weaver), an English diplomat who's leaving the country too soon to justify an affair. She succumbs, however, luckily for us, for the scenes of their passionate trysts are intense and exciting in a fresh young way. As the political situation begins to unravel, however, Guy is forced to yield his journalistic idealism to a forced acknowledgment of reality. An intriguingly complex and moving film from Peter Weir. --James McGrath
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Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Release date: 6 June 2000
Number of discs: 1
EAN: 9780790744285 UPC: 012569506824
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