Photos of Mel Gibson and Sigourney Weaver on the Set of “The Year of Living Dangerously” (1982)

The Year of Living Dangerously is a 1982 romantic drama film directed by Peter Weir and co-written by Weir and David Williamson. It was adapted from Christopher Koch’s 1978 novel The Year of Living Dangerously. The story is about a love affair set in Indonesia during the overthrow of President Sukarno. It follows a group of foreign correspondents in Jakarta during the weeks leading up to the attempted coup by the 30 September Movement in 1965. The film is considered one of the last in the Australian New Wave genre.

The film stars Mel Gibson as Australian journalist Guy Hamilton, and Sigourney Weaver as British Embassy officer Jill Bryant. It also stars Linda Hunt as a Chinese-Australian man with dwarfism, Billy Kwan, Hamilton's local photographer contact, a role for which Hunt won the 1983 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Although originally set to be filmed in Jakarta, permission to film in Indonesia was denied, so the bulk of the film was shot in the Philippines, in Manila’s Quiapo district and the Banaue Rice Terraces. Weir said, “All slums look alike, after all.” Death threats against Weir and Gibson from Muslims who believed the film would be anti-Islam forced the production to move to Australia. The crew moved to Sydney in early April 1982 during its fifth week of the six-week Philippine shoot with only a few small scenes remaining. Filming in Australia took another six weeks.

Gibson downplayed the death threats, saying, “It wasn’t really that bad. We got a lot of death threats to be sure, but I just assumed that when there are so many, it must mean nothing is really going to happen. I mean, if they meant to kill us, why send a note?”

Gibson described his character Guy, saying, “He’s not a silver-tongued devil. He’s kind of immature and he has some rough edges and I guess you could say the same for me.”

It was banned from being shown in Indonesia until 2000, after the forced resignation of coup-leader and political successor Suharto in 1998. The title The Year of Living Dangerously is a quote which refers to a famous Italian phrase used by Sukarno: vivere pericolosamente, meaning “living dangerously.” Sukarno used the line for the title of his Indonesian Independence Day speech of 1964.