Rating: 
Summary: Miscasting Still Doesn't Ruin the Film
Review: Sigourney Weaver is the LAST actress I would have chosen for this film. Too many sound,wonderful British actresses to pick from -- why Weaver? The rest of the cast is essentially perfect. However, I rarely read anything about a feature of the film that still has me tinkering on my piano all these years later--that music! dada da dada da dum dee dum....da da dum dee dum dee dum dee dum....over and over again, the steely instruments of indigenous chorals floods my body. Did this movie earn a nomination for Best Original Score? The environment of music (I am a pianist) can make or break a good story into a great story.
Rating: 
Summary: Simply spectacular acting by Hunt, Gibson and Weaver.
Review: The acting by the three main characters conveys, the danger, desparation, romance and humanity during the overthrow of the Indonesian government in 1965.
Rating: 
Summary: Dark
Review: The movie is very dark. Could certainly use better lighting. Sometimes a little confusing.
Rating:
Summary: In a foreign land
Review: There have been a lot of political dramas about third world situations undergoing violent upheavals but none have captured their complexity quite as well as this one. In fact though it is a film about a specific revolution or populist uprising Year of Living Dangerously deals with that situation in a philosophic way, making a fable of all its elements which allows this film to speak specifically to that situation as it unfolds and generally about all such situations that occur with unfortunate regularity in the news from places all over the world where mass starvation undermines a current regimes authority.
The film is also about a wealthy nations role in such circumstance. Mel Gibson plays an Australian journalist and that allows him to report events as they occur but not have to get involved in them or think about what they mean. That changes however when Mel meets Linda Hunt. Her character teaches Mel how to care about the people not just the events and that is the most fascinating relationship in the film. Sigourney Weaver is the daughter of an English colonial administrator but now that the political climate is a threatening and perilously unstable one the English are departing. Her father is pompous and very English, his intentions are good ones but his methods have been ineffective because from his lofty English perch he can not see the real needs of the people. Mel falls for his daughter who as a free spirit and free thinker cares for the people and understands their needs in a way her father could not. It is not surprising that Linda Hunt likes her and wishes to see she and Mel together. And she has a fascination with shadow puppets that makes her think of herself as something of a puppet master in the Mel and Sigourney love affair. However there is another puppet show going on and that is the political one. Linda Hunt may play the puppet master in the private sector but other people are pulling the strings in the public arena. Disillusion follows and a very exciting finale. Really one of the few films of the last thirty years I would call perfect in every way. Complex enough to give you a new slant on these events every time you view it. Every element of the film is fulfillingly developed and explored in such a way as to make one feel one has just watched a perfect film.
Rating:
Summary: Evocative and brilliant
Review: This film is brilliant and perfectly matched to its actors. The score by Maurice Jarre almost, but not quite, eclipses the real star of the film, the Indonesia of the movie's timeframe.Dreamy, brilliantly shot in the countryside and crowded 1960s Jakarta, and yet tautly real, the film overwhelms the senses yet is precise and sensitive on a large canvas. The ominousness of political events-- Sukarno's rise to power-- unfolds against an atmosphere so evocative that I forgot myself in the first few frames of the film. Only Weir's equally evocative film _Fearless_ plumbs the same rich depths this brilliant, perfectly-realized film does. More than 5 stars. A superb film that will make you forget yourself and remember its haunting themes, and very real human players in a drama beyond the scale of any of their lives.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful and Exotic Film That is Well Acted and Directed!
Review: This is one of those rare films that is difficult to categorize. It could easily be mistaken for a political thriller but it is not, it could have worked as a romance but Weir went for the big picture. So it is basically a political drama that is very heavy on mood and atmosphere. Peter Weir and Mel Gibson had successfully teamed up two years earlier with 'Gallipoli' and created one of the most powerful war films of all time. They re-teamed with this film creating a lesser film than 'Gallipoli' but still a very worthy effort. The film is very heavy on political issues but it doesn't really matter if you're informed on the subject. Linda Hunt stunned almost everybody when in 1983 she was nominated in the 'best supporting actress' category for the Oscars. This was because he played a man in the film so convincingly that nobody even noticed. But upon repeated viewings one begins to notice the femininity in her character. But still she delivered a mesmerizing performance, the best gender-switching performance since Jack Lemmon in 'Some Like It Hot'. Peter Weir is a very unique and talented director and he is an expert when it comes to expressing mood as we would see two years later with his American debut 'Witness' the critically acclaimed Harrison Ford vehicle that put him in the spotlight. But this film is one of the most intoxicatingly exotic movies ever filmed. Mel Gibson is excellent as an Australian correspondent who is thrown into the turmoil of political upheaval in Indonesia. Sigourney Weaver exudes much needed sex appeal, but her character was underdeveloped and her performance was unfocused. Some of the scenes linger in the mind long after the first viewing. A fascinating exotic drama that succeeds on many levels. From a scale of 1-10 I give this film an 8!
Rating:
Summary: Great Movie, more people should see it
Review: This is perhaps the most serious and socially redeeming film that Mel Gibson has done, it is up there with Braveheart on my list of favorite Gibson films would probably fall in the top 100 of my favorite all time films if I ever made such a list.. Real magic in acting is the performance given by Linda Hunt as she plays the part of a man most convincingly. Her portrayal of an Indonesian insider is very good. I am a big Gibson fan, and like almost all his films, but this movie is more than just a good movie well acted.
Up until just recently this movie was banned in Indonesia and for good reason, well, at least for good reason if you happen to be part of a corrupt government. It shows the darker side of revolution and reveals what most governments in backwards and corrupt parts of the world would like to remain hidden; their policies usually result in a huge class of very poor.
Gibson plays a British reporter freshly arriving in Indonesia, he meets some other reporters doing the usual reporting but he gets on an inside track that takes him into the seat of power and also into the country to meet the other side. It really isn't a story about the setting and times so much as it is a story about the people, friendship, loyalty and the terrible realization that life isn't fair or kind to most of the earths inhabitants but that friendship and love between people are enduring.
Even though the film is somewhat dark, I don't feel like it is a "downer" kind of movie, but it is definitely a "thinking/feeling" movie and not at all like the action/adventure/thriller type of movies that Gibson later becomes famous for. I highly recommend this film.
Rating:
Summary: Filipino actors gave viable support
Review: This may be a Gibson, Hunt and Weaver movie. But Filipino actor Bembol Roco gives amiable support. And Kuh Ledesma, who is considered to be the Philippines' Barbra Streisand, makes appearance as an Indonesian maiden assisting Gibson's reporting character. I just wish she sang the theme song for the film if there was one.
Rating:
Summary: One of my favorite movies of all time!
Review: This movie has it all. Romance, intrigue, and layers of metaphor. The puppets which Billy Kwan demonstrates to journalist Guy Hamilton are representative of the government of Sukarno and of the relationship Kwan has with his friends. He manipulates and plans a puppet show of his own between Hamilton and Jill Bryant. I would recommend this movie to anyone looking for intellectual stimulation as well as entertainment.
Rating:
Summary: Passion !!!
Review: Weaver and Gibson are truely Electric !!! Their best roles to date. Each possesses a sensuality that is truely ineffable. Hunt is magnificent to the n-th degree, the best gender switch role to come across the big screen. Vangelis and the remaining soundtrack provide music that can only explain the mood of this region and era. This film remains to be on my top ten.
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