Empire Magazine (2008) Greatest Movies List - #161: The Year of Living Dangerously

Peter Weir’s The Year of Living Dangerously (1982) is a very well made look at how reporters, back when they still had stable careers, operate in unstable countries. It looks at ethical questions, from the point of view of both the journalists covering the conflicts, and the people who actually live in the country and have to live with the impact of their coverage. One of these people is a photographer played by an award-winning Linda Hunt. Unfortunately, the other major role is played by Mel Gibson, a name now synonymous with controversy, but that shouldn’t stop anyone from seeing the movie.

Between Christmas and the start of 2022 like many people I was stuck indoors with a lot of time to kill so I caught up on a few shows and movies. I can’t say I was itching to complete my viewing of Mel Gibson’s filmography, but I was pleasantly surprised to see Linda Hunt have such a prominent role. Certain TV viewers might know her as the boss on NCIS LA, but here we see her early in her career in a much more dramatic role. It’s an impressive performance, especially given that she is convincingly playing a man.

The movie is set in Jakarta, Indonesia, in 1965 when there was high tension between communist and religious factions. Caught between those factions is a population living way below the poverty line and hoping for positive change. The situation draws international journalists such as Australian Guy Hamilton (Gibson) who is young with dreams of making a difference. His one contact in the city, local cameraman Billi Kwan (Hunt), proves to be a wealth of information on both the country’s culture and its politicians.

Kwan is also the story’s narrator, which makes narrative sense given how he seems to know everyone important in the city. Guy wonders if Billy is a spy, but maybe Billy is just a very good people person. It also helps people constantly underestimate him because of his short stature. Many of the other international journalists look down on him, both figuratively and literally, until he helps Guy score a major interview with a high-ranking member of the communist party. They make quite the team, covering riots while Guy comments on the situation in his microphone and Billy shoots with his camera at their own peril.

The rest of the international journalists and other diplomats/spies are an interesting lot. While the country is on the brink of conflict, many of these foreigners treat the situation almost like a vacation. Guy meets a British colonel (Bill Kerr) who is enjoying a sunny day by the pool but complains to a waiter that his drink doesn’t have enough ice. One reporter throws a party when he can finally afford a bungalow in the country. Another is happy to spend his leisure time chasing prostitutes who hang around a cemetery after dark, as long as he has access to penicillin.

Billy hopes Guy is different and is in a way grooming him to be a journalist that could help bring the country’s much needed change. The problem is the more success Guy gets, the more of a blind side he develops when it comes to ethics. Thanks to his romantic relationship with British embassy assistant Jill Bryant (Sigourney Weaver) he learns information that could shift the country’s political stability. Jill told him about the news in confidence so he could take precautions. Guy’s first instinct is to find proof of this information and tell the world, regardless of the impact on his relationship with Jill or on the local populace.

It is an interesting ethical dilemma. If this information is big news, is it Guy’s first priority to publish it, consequences be damned? However, if the news was told to him in confidence should he not mind his own business and wait for events to unfold? These are complicated questions, and if Guy was less self-centered, he would be asking them to Billy since he is in the best position to know what impact any information will have on his country.

Telling the story from Guy’s point of view makes sense given that like most of the audience he is a fish out of the water in this setting and historical context. However, the story could have been better if there had been less focus on Guy and his melodramatic romance, and more on the ordinary people of Jakarta. I never quite got the whole grasp of the conflict; despite the fact it is Guy’s job to tell me. The Year of Living Dangerously is worth watching, especially for Linda Hunt, but there is a better movie to be made about that historical period.

Empire Magazine Greatest Movies List - #333: Grease

Nostalgia is a powerful feeling. You have some good times in a period of your life, time goes by and you feel like going back to that time period. I am guessing someone in the late 70s felt nostalgic about late 1950s high school life in America, leading to the creation of “Grease,” one of John Travolta’s first hits. The life and time are very dated today, but every now and then you still hear the soundtrack on classic rock stations. Clearly the lyricists did their jobs right. This is not my favourite musical. It’s cutesy with catchy tunes, but my top two musicals are “The Blues Brothers” and “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” If it involves car chases, Ray Charles, the Time Warp, Meat Loaf, and Carrie Fisher with a rocket launcher then count me in. I have less enthusiasm for Danny Zucko singing about his summer love for Sandy. But the movie was available for a dollar on iTunes during an evening when I had nothing to do in University, so I might as well kill two hours and ...

Empire Magazine (2008) Greatest Movies List - #20: Blade Runner

Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982) is one of those movies that gets more relevant with each passing decade. Set in a (now passed) future in which Los Angeles is overrun with people and pollution, the story focuses on artificial lifeforms clashing with their human creators. As the chase for these lifeforms progresses, writers Hampton Francher and David Peoples imply they may not be so different from the humans chasing them. If this sounds topical in 2024, imagine how relevant it will sound ten years from now. When writing these amateur reviews, I usually try to think back on the first time I watched the movie and what I felt at the time. This is tricky with Blade Runner considering there have been five versions of the film released since the 1980s. I believe the first version I did see on TV was the original theatrical version with the narration to guide the audience since executives thought that was needed. I eventually disagreed and purchased the Final Cut on Blu-Ray to see th...

Empire Magazine (2008) Greatest Movies List - #357: The long Goodbye

Sometimes in a detective story the mystery is not half as fun as the detective stuck in the chaos of the story. Philip Marlow is one of those detectives. His name is synonymous with Hollywood noir and in The Long Goodbye (1973), he dives deep into a mystery involving a murder, then a suicide, then a missing person, and eventually a very violent gangster operating in sunny Los Angeles. One thing I love about this version is that this detective loves his cat enough to go buy him food at three o’clock in the morning. Now that is a dedicated pet lover. The late great director Robert Altman starts the action at a slow pace to introduce Marlowe (Eliott Gould) as he wakes up to his hungry cat. Here is a man who falls asleep in his clothes, always the same suit and tie, and is either constantly smoking or lighting a new cigarette. He is a friendly person, nice enough to pick up an item for his neighbours while going out to get cat food. It probably helps that said neighbours are five y...

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