Haller Lake United Methodist Church
2008 Lenten Faith and Film Series
Saturday, March 1, 2008
The Film: The Year of Living Dangerously
(1982; Directed by Peter Weir; length of viewing: 114 minutes)
(Rated PG - mature themes, brief profanity and violence, sexual scenes)
Preparation Helps
Comments taken from the book, Finding God in the Movies: 33 Films of Reel Faith, © 2004 by Catherine M. Barsotti and Robert K. Johnston. These comments are by Ms. Barsotti.
Our experiences in a movie theatre can range from pure entertainment, to art, to a divine moment.
The Year of Living Dangerously was a divine moment in my life – a moment of conversion.
This film is, on one level, about Indonesia in 1965 and President Sukarno’s tightrope walk between the poverty of his people and the revolutionary call of the communists.
It is also a love story between Guy (Mel Gibson), an Australian journalist, and Jill (Sigourney Weaver), a British embassy attaché.
Like other Weir films, it is also about standing in the intersection or clash of cultures (in this case, East and West).
But these various stories only set the context for what spoke to me most in the film.
Billy Kwan (played by actress Linda Hunt – her stunning portrayal won an Oscar) is half-Chinese, half-Australian cameraman who is literally and figuratively the eyes for those around him.
He shows Guy the heart of Jakarta – the slums and back alleyways filled with the poverty and pain of the people.–
Having seen, Guy nevertheless responds that a journalist must expose the structures, not get personally involved.
But Billy doesn’t let him off the hook:
BILLY: And the people asked him, saying, What shall we do then?
GUY: What's that?
BILLY: It's from Luke, chapter three, verse ten. “What then must we do?”
Tolstoy asked the same question.
He wrote a book with that title.
He got so upset about the poverty in Moscow that he went one night into the poorest section and just gave away all his money.
You could do that now.
Five American dollars would be a fortune to one of these people.
GUY: Wouldn’t do any good, just be a drop in the ocean.
BILLY: Ahh, that's the same conclusion Tolstoy came to. I disagree.
GUY: Oh, what's your solution?
BILLY: Well, I support the view that you just don’t think about the major issues.
You do whatever you can about the misery that’s in front of you.
Add your light to the sum of light.
You think that's naive, don’t you?
GUY: Yep.
BILLY: It's all right; most journalists do.
GUY: We can't afford to get involved.
BILLY: Typical journo’s answer.
Guy is not persuaded, but neither is Billy dissuaded.
“What then must we do?”
This question hovers over the film.
It asks us to consider what it means to live faithfully, to live with injustice that is overwhelming and systemic.
Billy volunteers to be Guy’s “eyes” and takes the journalist to see the poverty and suffering of the people of Indonesia, to see then not only as a newsman but as a human being with a heart.
How is Guy’s life changed by what he is shown?
Billy is probably the main character in this film – or, at least, the most unforgettable character:
- In one scene, we see Billy bringing food, a toy, and money to a prostitute and her sick son.
Afterwards, in his bungalow, Billy reflects on the woman and, again, on the Luke text.
He writes on his typewriter, “We must give our love to whomever God has placed in our path.”
- In another scene Billy has visited the woman again, only to find that the little boy has died.
Out of anguish he rails against the Western journalists and argues with Guy.
Back at his typewriter, he weeps.
What is Billy’s role in the film?
How does he function as the “faith-character” in this film?