Peter Weir's "Year of Living Dangerously" is one of the best 80s foreign dramas available. It stars an up and coming Mel Gibson in the middle of a politically volatile setting in 1960s Indonesia. Mel Gibson acts young, alive, and foolish as an Australian journalist Guy Hamilton in a country impoverished with a power struggle about to erupt between a communist type faction and the local in-power dictatorship. As a well done secondary plot, I found Gibsons's romance with Sigourney Weaver particularly enthralling about the middle 30 min of the movie, especially 2 scenes where career and relationship runs head-on at odds - and leading up to that with Weaver walking in the tropical rain amid squalor while contemplating that communicates atmosphere and feeling to perfection together. As a third supporting character, Linda Hunt's Billy does well as sort of a dismayed but hopeful dwarf journalist, and an on-looking supporter of the impoverished. The movie captures political tension very well as it does the setting - a hot, humid southeastern Asia(filmed in Phillipines and Australia) marred by inhumane living conditions and famine. Towards the end, one of the local characters remarks "Westerners don't have answers anymore"....almost 25 yrs after this movie, this still rings true. Excellent settings, characters, and intrigue along with mostly good music.

This excellent movie is set in 1965 Indonesia, when an Australian reporter named Gay Hamilton is assigned on his first work as a foreign journalist. His apparently simple mission to Yakarta soon turns hot when he interviews a rebel leader , while President Sukarno was toppling by pressure left from communists and right from military. Guy soon is the hottest reporter with the help of his photographer, a native, half- Chinese midget named Kwan . Eventually Hamilton must confront moral conflicts and the relationship between Billy and him reaches some problems connected with a British diplomatic attaché , at the same time the political upheaval takes place in coup détat.

Mel Gibson is good as correspondent covering a conflict and finding himself becoming personally involved when he befriends a free-lance photographer named Billy Kwan and falling for a beautiful Embassy assistant, a mesmerizing Sigourney Weaver .The movie has its touching moments found primarily in the superb supporting performances as Michael Murphy as lively journalist , Bill Kerr as veteran Colonel and of course diminutive Linda Hunt who steals the show as sensible photographer in her Academy Award-winning character, a woman acting a man, and well deservedly prized. Moving and intimate musical score though composed by synthesizer by Maurice Jarre. Atmospheric cinematography that adequate as a mood-piece by Russell Boyd.

The motion picture is stunningly directed by Australian director Peter Weir who achieved several hits (Witness, Gallipoli, The last wave) and some flop (Mosquito coast, The plumber). The movie belongs to sub-genre that abounded in the 80s about reporters around the world covering dangerous political conflicts , such as Nicaragua in ¨Under fire¨ by Robert Spottswoode with Nick Nolte , Gene Hackman and Joanna Cassidy, Salvador in ¨Salvador¨ by Oliver Stone with James Woods and James Belushi, and Libano in ¨Deadline¨ by Nathaliel Gutman with Christopher Walken and Hywel Bennett. These movies are very much in the vein of ¨The year of living dangerously ¨.

President Sukarno of Indonesia was able to maintain control of the nation by forging an uneasy alliance with the PKI--the country's communist party. However, this scared the nations of the West and upset both Muslims and the military which tended to be further right politically. This film is set in the mid-1960s....during Sukarno's final days as the true president of his nation. And, at this point the nation might swing to communism or become run by right wing reactionaries. Ultimately, the right staged a coup and kept Sukarno around a bit longer as a figurehead, but General Suharto and his supporters went on to butcher perhaps a million or more communists during a lengthy purge. Someone watching this film today could easily not understand this political context...as well as the country's nearing civil war at the same time Southeast Asia was in crisis.

Mel Gibson plays Guy Hamilton, an Australian journalist working in the capital, Jakarta. His assistant, Billy (Linda Hunt) seems drawn to the left and does much to guide Guy's stories. At the same time, Guy has fallen for a British lady from their embassy--though she (Sigourney Weaver) doesn't sound the least bit British. Through the course of the film, the country moves left and then right...and danger abounds.

This was a very well made drama, though I did have a quibble about the character played by Michael Murphy. He was an American reporter who could best be described as an evil, lecherous pig and it felt disingenuous to have him be the only American in the film...not that jerks like this guy didn't exist. Otherwise, compelling and worth seeing.