The Year of Living Dangerously

June 25, 1965.

Dossier H-10:
Hamilton, Guy.

Born 1936,

under the sign of Capricorn.

Occupation:
Journalist with the

Australian Broadcasting Service.

Jakarta. First assignment

as foreign correspondent.

You're an enemy here, Hamilton,

like all Westerners.

President Sukarno

tells the West to go to hell...

and today Sukarno

is the voice of the Third World.

- Where you get visa?

- Sydney.

Something wrong with that?

Mr. Hamilton? Mr. Hamilton?

- Welcome to Indonesia.

- Thanks. You're...

Kumar, from Jakarta office.

Hortono. Driver.

- Where's Potter?

- Mr. Potter has gone. He left this.

Where's he gone?

Back to Australia.

Please follow me.

He was supposed to stay

and brief me.

He said he was sorry.

His wife was sick.

Of what? Him?

No, of Jakarta, boss.

Our first air-conditioned hotel.

Here, Americans and Europeans

pay to be kept cold.

Who's this?

CIA.

Nah, he's an embassy office boy.

Look at him.

You're both wrong.

He's the new A.B.S. Man.

How did our diminutive friend

know that?

That little twerp knows everything.

Guy Hamilton, right?

- Right.

- Billy Kwan.

I did a lot of film work

for Potter.

How do you do?

I felt sorry for you.

Dumped in your first posting

without contacts.

Adrift, hoping to

bluff your way through.

Wally O'Sullivan, Sydney Herald.

- Read your stuff.

- Mere trifles, dear boy.

Kevin Condon,

photo journo for Theta.

- And Pete Curtis, Washington Post.

- Hi.

- Pleasant flight?

- Yeah, it was all right.

- This your first overseas post?

- Yes, it is. Yeah.

Pity about Potter takin' off.

Can be hard here without contacts.

I'll survive.

- Taxi, sir?

- No, thanks.

You should take a taxi.

It's dangerous walking there.

- Taxi, sir?

- No.

Most of us become children again

when we enter the slums of Asia.

Last night I watched you

walk back into childhood...

in all its opposite intensities...

laughter and misery,

the crazy and the grim...

toy town and a city of fear.

Hey, English, huh?

Hey, capitalist.

Is it always like that here?

Don't take it personally.

You're just a symbol of the West.

Feel more like a spittoon.

- Where are we going?

- This is a little market for the poor.

"And the people asked Him, saying,

'What shall we do then?"'

- What's that?

- It's from Luke.

Chapter 3, verse 10.

"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.

Wouldn't do any good.

Just be a drop in the ocean.

Ah. That's the same conclusion

Tolstoy came to.

- I disagree.

- What's your solution?

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?

- Yup.

- It's all right. Most journalists do.

- We can't afford to get involved.

Typical journo's answer.

Good luck for tomorrow.

You'll need it.

Go home. Get some sleep.

Take the one behind me.

You're ambitious, self-contained...

moderate to conservative in politics,

and despite your navet...

I sense a potential,

something immediately apparent.

A possibility.

Could you be the unmet friend?

Boss, take off your sunglasses

when you go in.

Palace guards say they can

tell assassin by his eyes.

- Good morning.

- Good morning.

Missed anything?

Yeah, 63 minutes

of excruciating boredom.

I got a feeling he's gonna make

a pronouncement this morning.

Oh, really, Kevin?

What makes you say that?

- Just a thought.

- Yeah?

When a thought crosses your mind, it's

been on the shortest trip in Jakarta.

What happens next?

Soon as Sukarno's finished breakfast,

we go up.

- How do you know when he's finished?

- He throws his scraps to us.

Sorry, chaps.

Age before beauty.

One, two, three.

Testing, testing.

It'll do his image a world of good.

The president will act...

- Of course I will...

- General?

No, not now.

Just come up here for a minute.

Are you gonna leave the U.N. Or not?

Korea respect Sukarno.

Not like...

Let me put it this way. If you

don't leave, what are you gonna do?

Can I come to your place?

If you leave the U.N.,

what are you gonna do?

In short, Jakarta is a city where

the questions outnumber the answers...

but one thing is certain:

That Sukarno's tightrope shuffle

between the Communist P.K. I...

and the right-wing military...

is looking more precarious

as the hours tick by.

This is Guy Hamilton

in Jakarta for A.B.S. News.

- Is that all?

- What do you mean?

- You could have written that from here.

- What about the tightrope image?

Everyone else thinks Sukarno

is in control.

Guy, that wasn't news.

It was travelogue.

Sydney out.

- Didn't like it, eh, boss?

- Stop callin' me boss.

Sorry.

Have one of these.

- Why are you creepin' around?

- I'm sorry. I didn't hear you come in.

- Geez.

- I keep equipment here.

Potter gave me a key.

Do you want it back?

Huh! Keep it.

- Did you get an interview today?

- What?

- Did you get an interview?

- No, I didn't.

You're in trouble.

Do you realize that?

It's early days yet.

All the top doors are shut

to Western journalists.

- Curtis got an interview.

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