Taking Care Of Pictures:
The Theme Of Eyes And Seeing In The Film The Year Of Living Dangerously

By Bonnie Roy

In 1965, President Sukarno of Indonesia played a volatile game with the lives of his countrymen as the nation’s two major factions--the Communists and the Muslim army--grew increasingly powerful and bargained for his cooperation. Sukarno himself deemed it “the year of living dangerously,” and in 1982 that dangerous situation was brought to the big screen by Australian director Peter Weir. Adapted from a novel, Weir’s film deals not only with the dicey political situation, but more importantly with its human context as well. The Year of Living Dangerously follows an Australian journalist, Guy Hamilton and photographer Billy Kwan as they attempt to chronicle Indonesia for the daily news. When the two begin their partnership, Billy tells the reporter, “You worry about the words. I’ll take care of the pictures.” This is what Billy, who is the conscience of the film, undertakes to do through the entire film. Amidst the flurry of politics, the distraction of rhetoric, and the temptation of elitism, Billy forces Guy and other characters in the film to open their own blinded eyes to the eyes of the poor and struggling around them. He sees the human condition of Indonesia, and true to his word, he takes care of the pictures, relentlessly guiding others to see it as well.

The early scenes of the film are filled with eyes. As Guy Hamilton arrives in the Indonesian city of Jakarta, he is shielded with sunglasses, but in order to pass by security, he must reveal himself. For a tense moment, the camera captures Guy and an Indonesian official staring at each other, eyes locked, one pair an intense blue, the other a resolute brown. In Guy’s eyes is defiance, and in his adversary’s, a latent hostility. Neither man sees the other for what he is. Neither sees beyond the exterior identity--reporter, guard--to any of the complexity of a human being.

The beginning of the film continues to deal with the exteriors of the characters, of the political situation, and of the human situation in Indonesia. Each character is introduced through his or her eyes, with the camera focusing on them for long seconds. Guy first notices Jill Bryant, with whom he will fall in love, when he is staring at her eyes in a photograph Billy has taken. The camera rests often on Billy’s eyes, but his thoughtful dialogue soon gives the impression that he is a character whose eyes are already opened. “I can be your eyes,” he tells Guy. “The unseen is all around us.” Billy introduces the concept of seeing, but still the film eases along with surface concerns.

The political situation is described in Guy’s journalistic words as Billy guides the reporter around to see the key political figures. Sukarno is shown just once or twice in person, but the city is crowded with banners bearing the president’s face. Interestingly, Sukarno always wears sunglasses; in the final scenes of the film, this becomes significant. Early on, Billy does not force Guy to really see what is going on in Indonesia. Guy watches the country with the aloof eye of any journalist; interested chiefly in his story, he can afford the luxury of ignoring human consequences and ramifications.

It becomes more difficult to confine the human condition to a surface issue. Billy takes Guy on a walking tour of Jakarta’s slums after nightfall, and Guy is confronted with the poverty of the city. Starving children, bodies emaciated and deformed, throng the streets. For the first time, Guy has the chance to see the eyes of the poor--eyes he will later describe as “hollow, lifeless…dull, listless, imploring.” But that first night in the slums, Guy cannot yet see the poverty behind the eyes, their struggles and pains. He maintains his journalistic distance. He might as well still have his sunglasses on.

As the film progresses, Billy gains ground in making Guy truly see the world around them. When describing the Indonesian shadow play to his friend, Billy tells him to “watch their shadows, not the puppets.” If in the first part of the film Guy was distracted by the puppets--the official pronouncements of the government, the comfortable hierarchy of position which separated him from the people of Jakarta, the ambitious focus on self that allowed him to treat others as strangers--he now begins to pay attention to the shadows--the subtle interplay of human relationships, the ethical considerations behind everyday actions. His neat world begins to get complicated, and he cannot fail to see it.

One complication is personal. Guy falls in love with Jill, and this real emotion forces him to see the woman she is, rather than just the beautiful image she projects. He must move beyond staring at Jill’s eyes to understanding her. At this point, Guy must deal with conflict. An employee of the British embassy, Jill is about to leave Jakarta and everyone in it, but in spite of this, Guy charges ahead and forges their relationship. Instead of being able to revel in the pleasures of new-found love, he must accept the consequences of Jill’s impending departure, and then decide how to react to it. He falls back on his self-centered ambition, telling her to stay because he will not go. Although he has been able to see that he loves her, he cannot see the significance of that bond, nor can he see any need for personal sacrifice.

In the political situation, Guy evolves similarly. Billy has taught him to see the situation, with Sukarno poised precariously in the middle while the PKI (Communist Party) and the Muslim generals scheme and prepare for a fight. But Guy persists in seeing politics in the context of a news story rather than the context of life. When Jill mentions a potentially important political development, which is as yet unknown to the public, Guy ignores her wishes, her safety, and his own safety, and begins a relentless search for a big scoop. Blind to the character of his assistants, Guy takes along one of them, whom he does not realize is a Communist, as he attempts to uncover a Communist plot. When he finally realizes the identity of his assistant, the man admits that he is a highly-placed member of the PKI and warns Guy off the story, saying the PKI has a list of people to kill. “You are on it,” he tells Guy. Still, the ambitions of a reporter are paramount, and Guy again charges recklessly forward, failing to see the implications his actions will have for himself or anyone else.

The human situation becomes less remote for Guy when he realizes Billy’s personal connection to it. The walls of Billy’s home bear pictures of an impoverished Indonesian woman and her deathly ill son. Billy, moved by the horrible situation all around him because his eyes are constantly open to it, has adopted the woman and her child and attempted to tackle the problem of poverty by helping these people. Here again, Billy comes up against the struggle of blinded eyes. “I cannot make her see,” he says, “that the water she uses is contaminated.” Eventually, it causes the death of her son. While Billy is immersed in the pain of loss, Guy manages to keep up a shield. He sees the loss and the pain, but unlike Billy he cannot see his way to any attempted solution. He only sees continued, monotonous tragedy that has become so ordinary it is not even news. Guy continues to seek out his big story, turning away from the tragedy all around him.

It is Billy’s ultimate sacrificial act that makes Guy finally see the need for reprioritization and action. After the death of the boy, as the film is running to its close, Billy stares at a banner of Sukarno, whom he once thought was a great man. Billy realizes that Sukarno, in his sunglasses, has blinded his own eyes to the agonies of his people. He has chosen to overlook them rather than to see them, to ignore their problems rather than to try to solve them. At this moment, Billy sees the pointlessness of his support for Sukarno and, moreover, sees the need to make an important sacrifice, an example of love and principle that the people in Jakarta will not be able to ignore.

In one dramatic, final gesture of conscience in action, Billy makes his way to the seventh floor of a major hotel. He hangs a banner from the window that implores: “Sukarno, feed your people.” Billy’s demand is seen by the people below as well as by the brutal police. The tension mounts as they knock down his door, and Billy looks them in the eyes as the force of their bullets in his body sends him sprawling backwards, screaming, out the window and crashing to the pavement below. In death, Billy smiles. He has seen his way to the end. Guy is left behind to ponder his betrayal of Billy--Billy who confronted him and said, “I made you see things”--and Guy realizes he misunderstood these things, took them for less than they were, and hustled forward with nothing but a story in his sight. Finally, Guy understands the horrible futility of his blindness. As Billy dies in his arms, Guy mourns the loss of his friend, noting the irony that Sukarno did not even see the banner. At this point, Guy begins to admit to himself that he, too, has been as blind as Sukarno.

Guy’s vision becomes complete, in another twist of irony, only after he is accosted by an army officer and bashed in the face with the butt of a gun. The doctor warns him that if he moves, he may well lose his vision because of the injuries to his eyes. But finally Guy has been able to see what Billy saw all along--not the physical world, not the puppets, but the significant things in life, the shadows--and he knows he must get to the airport or lose Jill forever. With the nation in turmoil and his own safety in jeopardy, Guy is at last able to see beyond the fleeting importance of a good story. He now sees the importance of people--of Billy, whom he has lost, and of Jill, whom he might still win. Disregarding the possible dangers, Guy makes his way to the airport. In one final scene, which proves that he has seen beyond his own ambitions, he surrenders his reporting equipment to the Indonesian officials so that he can reach Jill in time.

The Year of Living Dangerously is, fundamentally, a story of people finding meaning. As it begins, Billy Kwan is struggling to envision the solution to the problems he sees in Jakarta. Over and over again he asks himself, “What then must we do?” Billy’s vision requires nothing less than the ultimate sacrifice, his life for the people and the principles he loves. For Guy Hamilton, who comes into the film blinded by his professional ambitions, the struggle is to see beyond himself to the significance of the world and people around him. Unlike Billy, his struggle is to envision leading a life of real human concerns and rewards rather than to envision an ending to a noble life and a noble struggle. Billy’s perseverance in taking care of the pictures--confronting Guy with human sights--leads Guy through this redefining process. Throughout the film, the emphasis on eyes and seeing reveals both their struggles, even amidst the backdrop of enduring chaos that was Indonesia in 1965.