1982 Australian romantic political drama
The Year of Living Dangerously is a 1982 romantic drama film directed by Peter Weir and co-written by Weir and David Williamson. It was adapted from Christopher Koch's 1978 novel The Year of Living Dangerously. The story is about a love affair set in Indonesia during the overthrow of President Sukarno. It follows a group of foreign correspondents in Jakarta during the weeks leading up to the attempted coup by the 30 September Movement in 1965. The film is considered one of the last in the Australian New Wave genre.
The film stars Mel Gibson as Australian journalist Guy Hamilton, and Sigourney Weaver as British embassy officer Jill Bryant. It also stars Linda Hunt as a Chinese Australian man with dwarfism, Billy Kwan, Hamilton's local photographer contact, a role for which Hunt won the 1983 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. The film was shot in both Australia and the Philippines, and includes Australian actors Bill Kerr as Colonel Henderson and Noel Ferrier as Wally O'Sullivan.
It was banned from being shown in Indonesia until 2000, after the forced resignation of coup leader and political successor Suharto in 1998. The title The Year of Living Dangerously is a quote which refers to a famous Italian phrase used by Sukarno: vivere pericolosamente, meaning "living dangerously". Sukarno used the line for the title of his Indonesian Independence Day speech of 1964.
Plot summary adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.