The Year of Living Dangerously (1982) on Netflix
In 1965 Jakarta, novice correspondent Guy Hamilton reports for an Australian radio network. His predecessor left no contacts, so photographer Billy Kwan arranges interviews for him.
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Trailer
Plot summary
In 1965, Guy Hamilton takes up his first foreign posting as a correspondent for an Australian radio network in Jakarta, where President Sukarno holds power and rival factions leave reporters scrambling for information. His predecessor left without introducing him to a single contact, and Guy's early reporting gets him nowhere. Billy Kwan, a Chinese-Australian photo-journalist with dwarfism who admires Sukarno and looks after a destitute woman and her son, befriends him and arranges interviews with political figures. Billy also brings Guy together with Jill Bryant, an assistant at the British Embassy who is due to return to London. She resists his attention at first, then they fall in love. As Jakarta grows more dangerous, Guy stays to pursue the story.
Cast
- Kuh Ledesmaas Tiger Lily
- Hermino De Guzmanas Immigration Officer
- Ali Nuras Ali
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Year of Living Dangerously (1982)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Dancer David Atkins was originally cast as Billy Kwan, but Peter Weir decided to recast during rehearsals when the dynamic with Mel Gibson's character was not working; Bob Balaban and Wallace Shawn auditioned before Weir cast Linda Hunt.
- Death threats from Muslims who believed the film would be anti-Islamic forced Peter Weir and Mel Gibson's production out of the Philippines, moving to Sydney in early April 1982 during the fifth week of the six-week shoot, with only a few scenes left.
- Indonesia banned The Year of Living Dangerously until 2000; the ban was lifted only after the 1998 forced resignation of Suharto, the coup leader and political successor to Sukarno.
- The title comes from Sukarno's use of the Italian phrase "vivere pericolosamente", meaning "living dangerously", which he took as the title of his 1964 Indonesian Independence Day speech.
- To play Billy Kwan, Linda Hunt shortened and dyed her hair black, wore padding around her waist, shaved her eyebrows and carried something in her shirt pocket.
- After the South Australian Film Corporation dropped out, MGM put up the entire $6 million budget, making it one of the first co-productions between Australia and a Hollywood studio and the most ambitious Australian film undertaken at the time.
- Christopher Koch wrote an early draft that Peter Weir rejected; Alan Sharp wrote three more and David Williamson several more, and Koch, who returned for some voice-over work but never spoke to Weir, claimed the final script was "55% Williamson/Weir, and 45% Koch".
