The Year of Living Dangerously

Saw The Year of Living Dangerously, a knotty film about an Australian reporter who is sent to cover the Communist unrest in Java. There he befriends a dwarf who seems to speak only in dense metaphor and pointed allusions. The dwarf is the truth-teller of this film, bringing up rich, important questions, the most important of which is the simple "what then is to be done?" This question refers to the grotesque misery of the poorest people, but seemingly has no solution. The film is dense and fascinating, juxtaposing the cruel indifferent word-games of the foreign reporters with the living results of competing political philosophies.

Then, midway through the film, the whole thing comes to a screeching halt and the film becomes a romance. The truth-telling dwarf becomes a match-maker and the fascinating political upheaval becomes just so much window-dressing for the oh-so-fascinating rehash of boy meets girl. Within the film itself, there's some interesting defense of this bait-and-switch, with the dwarf admonishing the reporter for putting political games before romance. I sort of suspect that the bait-and-switch might really be in the opposite direction: the romance serving to trick us into a political-minded film rather than the reverse. I was reminded of Chris Marker's Grin Without a Cat, a non-fiction photo-essay about the promises and failures of socialism. Like that film, this one also examines socialist ideals with a bitter and frustrated eye. Unfortunately, the image is obscured by the soft-focus of the romance which is always pointlessly competing for screen-time.

This is an interesting film, dealing with heavy topics in a measured way. Like a Tom Clancy novel however, all of this fascinating geopolitics goes right out the window as soon a the film gets to its main interest. With Clancy that would be car-chase but here's it's the reporter and his best gal caught in the rain! Oh how they giggle as they run through road-blocks, as guards fire machine guns at their gaily speeding car! Such a strange and frustrating film.