'Year of Living Dangerously' to get first RI screening<\/p>\n
By Daniel Cooney<\/p>\n
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP): Banned by Indonesia's former dictator
\nSoeharto for graphically depicting his tumultuous and bloody rise
\nto power in the 1960s, the movie, The Year of Living Dangerously,
\nis set to be screened here for the first time.<\/p>\n
Organizers of the city's annual film festival said last week
\nthey planned to feature the 1983 movie next week.<\/p>\n
Set amid rising political tensions, extreme poverty and bloody
\ndemonstrations, many regard it as a definitive celluloid
\ndepiction of the world's fourth most populous nation.<\/p>\n
The story centers around the ouster of founding President
\nSukarno in 1965 and the subsequent killing of hundreds of
\nthousands of suspected communists.<\/p>\n
The film focuses on foreign journalists covering the turmoil.
\nStarring Mel Gibson, Sigourney Weaver and Linda Hunt, it is based
\non a novel written by Australian author Christopher Koch.<\/p>\n
Hunt won an Oscar for her portrayal of a cameraman with a
\nsocial conscience.<\/p>\n
Jakarta objected to the movie even before filming started in
\n1983. Australian-born director Peter Weir was forced to shoot it
\nin Sydney and the Philippines' capital, Manila.<\/p>\n
The head of the Jakarta International Film Festival, Natacha
\nDevillers, said Indonesia's formerly strict censor board had said
\nit would not prevent the Nov. 8 screening.<\/p>\n
"This will be the first time it has been shown here," she
\nsaid.<\/p>\n
"The censors have said they will not block the showing of
\nanything political."<\/p>\n
Devillers said Indonesian censors had relaxed many of their
\nstrict rules since Soeharto was forced from office in May 1998
\nafter 32 years of autocratic rule.<\/p>\n
Soeharto, a former army general, replaced Sukarno in 1965
\nafter a still-unexplained mutiny by leftist army officers.
\nSoeharto placed Sukarno, Indonesia's founding father, under house
\narrest where he died in 1970.<\/p>\n
Current President Abdurrahman Wahid took office a year ago
\npromising to push through democratic reforms. One of Sukarno's
\ndaughters, Megawati Soekarnoputri, is Vice President.<\/p>\n
Wahid has called for greater liberalization of the
\nentertainment industry and encouraged an independent and critical
\npress. He also has called for a reappraisal of the events of
\n1965.<\/p>\n
Ironically, some analysts and journalists in Indonesia have
\nlabeled 2000 as another year of living dangerously, after a spate
\nof bombings and fierce sectarian and separatist clashes.<\/p>",
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