Year of Living Dangerously Screens in Singapore
April 29, 1999 - 0:0
SINGAPORE Filmmaker Peter Weir's 1983 movie The Year of Living Dangerously finally hit the screens in Singapore on Tuesday, 15 years after it was banned apparently over concerns it might upset neighboring Indonesia. The movie, set during the bloody events of 1965 that led to the overthrow of Indonesia's first President Sukarno, was shown here for the first time on Tuesday as part of a local film festival.
Singapore censors lifted the ban on the film last year with officials saying it was merely a periodic review. The film, starring Mel Gibson and Sigourney Weaver, featured Gibson as a journalist covering a failed 1965 communist coup in Indonesia, leading up to the chaotic power shift between President Sukarno and President Suharto. Suharto resigned last May after bloody riots and growing calls for reforms triggered by the country's worst economic crisis since Sukarno's rule.
His resignation was seen by some critics as having provided an opportunity for the review. Weir, who welcomed the lifting of the ban last year, was brought to the city-state by the Singapore Film Commission as an inaugural speaker for a lecture series. The Australian director told Reuters he thought Singapore's authorities at the time of the ban had responded to some anticipated sensitivity from Suharto or from the government at the time.
The film, through the words of the central character, is critical of Sukarno in the end and says he failed the people. Now them's fighting words if you revere Sukarno and I would say that was the heart of it, Weir said. Since Suharto's downfall, Singapore's government controlled press has carried extensive and at times critical articles on Indonesia and debate has been more open on the tensions roiling its giant neighbour.
At a news conference on Tuesday, Weir recounted how life imitated art when the making of the movie proved as risky to him and his crew as the 1965 events were to the characters in the film. Weir said he would find it difficult to make a similar movie about Indonesia now despite its current turmoil. I don't think you can ever go back to the subject, I find it difficult to consider repeating myself in any way, many creative people would say that.
But who knows there could be a story but it would be a different kind of story. As for real life, the events happening there now are tragic and you just hope that a leadership would emerge to take them out of this crisis, he said. (Reuter)
Singapore censors lifted the ban on the film last year with officials saying it was merely a periodic review. The film, starring Mel Gibson and Sigourney Weaver, featured Gibson as a journalist covering a failed 1965 communist coup in Indonesia, leading up to the chaotic power shift between President Sukarno and President Suharto. Suharto resigned last May after bloody riots and growing calls for reforms triggered by the country's worst economic crisis since Sukarno's rule.
His resignation was seen by some critics as having provided an opportunity for the review. Weir, who welcomed the lifting of the ban last year, was brought to the city-state by the Singapore Film Commission as an inaugural speaker for a lecture series. The Australian director told Reuters he thought Singapore's authorities at the time of the ban had responded to some anticipated sensitivity from Suharto or from the government at the time.
The film, through the words of the central character, is critical of Sukarno in the end and says he failed the people. Now them's fighting words if you revere Sukarno and I would say that was the heart of it, Weir said. Since Suharto's downfall, Singapore's government controlled press has carried extensive and at times critical articles on Indonesia and debate has been more open on the tensions roiling its giant neighbour.
At a news conference on Tuesday, Weir recounted how life imitated art when the making of the movie proved as risky to him and his crew as the 1965 events were to the characters in the film. Weir said he would find it difficult to make a similar movie about Indonesia now despite its current turmoil. I don't think you can ever go back to the subject, I find it difficult to consider repeating myself in any way, many creative people would say that.
But who knows there could be a story but it would be a different kind of story. As for real life, the events happening there now are tragic and you just hope that a leadership would emerge to take them out of this crisis, he said. (Reuter)