'The Year of Living Dangerously' finally on screen in Singapore

By Prapti Widinugraheni

SINGAPORE (JP): The Year of Living Dangerously has finally come to Singapore -- the film, that is. After a 16-year ban, the highly acclaimed film was shown for the first time here on Tuesday after an introduction by its director, Peter Weir.

"I'm sorry I'm late," Weir told a packed audience minutes before the movie started. "I am 16 years late."

Earlier that day, the Australian-born film director told a media conference that Singapore's ban on the controversial 1983 movie, which was screened here at the ongoing Singapore International Film Festival, was probably out of respect to a similar ban imposed by Indonesia's Soeharto regime.

Indonesia opposed The Year of Living Dangerously even before the filming began, said Weir, 54, who was here to present a lecture organized by the Singapore Film Commission. The Indonesian authorities advised him not to film in the country he loved and had often visited.

"So reluctantly I looked elsewhere," he said. Most scenes, including those portraying kampong life in 1965 Jakarta, were shot in Manila and Sydney.

But danger followed the crew to Manila, where Weir received death threats. "The (Manila) police could only guess where the threats were coming from. But they did tell us not to worry because they reckoned they did not come from Marxists," he said with a laugh.

One evening, while shooting in the slums of Manila, he and other crew members heard an automatic weapon being cocked in an alley behind them. "At the time we laughed it off, but when I stepped back and looked at our set from the outside, I saw the crew and cast laughing and having cups of tea, and realized what a contrast it was to the poverty around us," he said.

Weir said he had anticipated Indonesia's ban, despite his intention to make the film's subject "more metaphysical", by involving love and betrayal set against the backdrop of Jakarta in 1965.

"The background could have been different," he said. "Perhaps it is too reminiscent of Sukarno's years," he said on the ban of the film named after a quote by president Sukarno.

Based on a novel by Christopher Koch, The Year of Living Dangerously revolves around the adventures of Australian journalist Guy Hamilton, played by Mel Gibson. Hamilton is posted in Jakarta as a foreign correspondent during the period leading to the downfall of president Sukarno. He finds himself caught in the political upheavals of the time, but also in a romance with a British Embassy official, played by Sigourney Weaver. The film landed Linda Hunt an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role of Chinese-Australian cameraman Billy Kwan who guides Hamilton through his assignments.

Kwan forces Hamilton to report the poverty and misery around them, until Hamilton puts his career above friendship and love while tracking down a shipment of arms to the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). But Hamilton chooses romance over his career when the biggest news story of 1965 breaks: the PKI coup fails and the Indonesian Army starts its infamous massacre of Communists.

Weir, who lives in Sydney, said he had no plans to make another film on Indonesia since he didn't want to retread old ground. It is tragic that Indonesia's current political and social unrest reflect the scenes in his film, he said.

"I hope the elections will help Indonesians find a leader that will satisfy the people."

Weir has directed other acclaimed movies such as Dead Poets Society (1989) Green Card (1990) and The Truman Show (1998), the latter winning three Golden Globe Awards.

Weir started work at Channel 7 in Sydney, where he made his first film, Count Vim's Last Exercise. In 1969 he directed Michael and won the Grand Prix, 1970 Australian Film Institute Awards. The following year he won the Grand Prix for Homesdale. Then came the war film, Gallipoli, which put Weir and Mel Gibson on the movie map.

He likened his job as director to that of a mountaineer. "Each film is a new peak to be conquered," he said, hence a new film was like a dangerous mountain and an exciting adventure where forces of nature required one to tread carefully.

Weir is committed to maintaining his artistic integrity while pursuing a career in the competitive and commercially driven Hollywood film industry. He does this by making sure he has the final say in all his movies.

"I am open to ideas, and I am not afraid," he said. But he's also not afraid to tell people when their ideas will fail or ruin a film's plot. And when financiers and producers start pushing their ideas too aggressively, Weir pulls out his return tickets and threatens to walk away.

"If you don't have confidence in my choices, don't hire me," he said. But once he has decided to take up a script -- or rather, "gets found by" a script -- he will "eat it up". "It will become part of me, in my veins... I will represent the film," he said.