The Lost City of Z

Spoilers, perhaps, in this review, the viewer would b the judge of that. If one wants to know, read on, if one doesn't want to know, STOP. This is a magnificent film of the true life dream of famed British explorer, Percy Fawcett, portrayed by Charlie Hunnam, Sienna Miller, portrays his strong wife, Nina. Totally brilliant acting throughout to the very end. I couldn't stop watching the exploration become an obsession, for Percy, before the war, to continue with his son, Jack Faucett, after the war. Understand, Fawcett, in the beginning, leaves his family behind for years at a stretch & miraculously survives time & time again through dangerous, uncharted jungles searching with loyal friends/explorers for "The Lost City of Z." They believe in him as much as his wife, Nina. Faith, in the belief of what one searches to exist, is a powerful thing. It does not leave the mind; nor does it waver, but it empowers the believer to explore, to persist, because that's what an explorer or dreamer does--reaches & trudges through the unknown. They never lose hope, despite all odds stacked against them. The setting of this film is 3/4's complete with a jungle of savages unleashed as man intrudes upon their world. A world of headhunters & the likes of cannibals, but Faucett perseveres. During his few returns home to his family, you witness the love of a strong wife, who believes in her husband's dream; she encourages & supports him. You have Faucett, the father, the husband, the friend, who risks everything to achieve discovery of a lost city & goes where few, if any at all, have survived. When Faucett ages & takes a respite to heal from war wounds, his eldest son finally understands his father's absenses through the years, & implores his father to explore the far, dangerous reaches of the Amazon with him by his side, once more. One might never quite realize if the story is accurate or not, but it's very good & I'm glad the eldest son finally understood his father, Percy's absenses & obsession . It's a long movie, but well played with direction, plot, action, drama, power of relationships & the endeavor to dare fulfill a dream. I loved the explorer & his passion for his dream--a dream; that, in all likelihood became his pitfall. Whatever the ending for the viewer--never give up on your dreams, even if it's not for the lost city of gold & proof of traces of a lost civilization. In all honesty, I was not prepared for the way this film ended, but I would watch it again, if time allowed. Post Review. It's been days since I wrote this review & I can't stop thinking about this movie. It's the type of film that I will always remember; it's that good. I followed up with research into Percy Fawcett's life & explorations. It's a shame that his disappearance will never gets solved. Then again, he & his son, & his son's best friend, whom the movie didn't include, vanished into the unknown. Some speculate hostile Natives in that part of the jungle, some think The white man robbed & murdered the three. The latter does make sense since the ring his son, Jack Fawcett, gave him turned up in a pawn shop, a short time, after neighboring & friendly Natives saw the last fires from Fawcetts' camp. They saw it; then it was darkness. Nina Fawcett never gave up thinking her husband & son were alive. Grasping to "tales" of possible sightings of the two living with Indians in the jungle. Then, there's the compass--conflicting accounts of that, as well, whether it was sent to Nina or the Geological associate or sent to anyone. It's tragic, but obsession to fulfill a dream took Fawcett, his son, & son's best friend to their destiny.

I'm glad I watched some of the interviews of the cast before watching this film because hearing what they all had endured to make it really skewed my opinion. The writers and director had a tricky film to make, not only with where it was shot (which was in the middle of the jungle) but also with the story and concept. It's based on real events and real people's lives and takes place over a long period of time, which would be difficult for even the best of directors to portray well. There are times where it feels disjointed or that they don't portray the passage of time very well. I thought he'd been in the jungle a week, but then when he gets home his wife had already had the baby and his son doesn't recognize him. Then watching his kids grow up you finally do get a sense of how much time he's lost with them all for the sake of his dream. The end, though I won't spoil it, was a bit ambiguous, and I'm not sure if that was intentional or not. I admit, I only watched this because Tom Holland is in it, even though he plays a minor role. He did such a great job playing a very young Jack, then aging into a young adult. It's crazy how versatile he is as an actor. (Play a 12-year-old, okay, now you're sixteen, now you're twenty) Yet it's believable every time. Robert Pattinson also does a great job in this movie. Who knew that he would be such a great actor when given a good script and director and isn't required to be the teen heartthrob. Obviously, Charlie Hunnam did the most work out of the actors, and he does a great job carrying this movie. He's a mature enough actor that he can pull off young dad, war vet, and father to an adult son very well with a bit of makeup. (He's barely old enough to be Tom Holland's dad) Even though it's a bit disjointed at times, I really enjoyed the movie.

Blown away by this story of Percy Fawcett. The film runs a little slow in places. But, the cinematography is so amazing, I didn't mind. Some people might not like the style of color grading here, as even the most white of whites is yellow. That push to a yellowy color grade to me was a bit bold. But, considering the period it fits. And it helps the jungle scenes really pop. And the low light of many of the scenes seems to lend it self well to the low-tech world of the era. The acting is excellent top to bottom. Wondering where they shot this. It seemed to me like they actually shot it in the Amazon with contacted tribes. Everything with the tribes seemed authentic. Also the production design and costumes were amazing. Top to bottom, this is an actually film that you have to sit and watch and pay attention. There is a great story in the life of Percy Fawcett. If you want exploding robots and lens flares tickling your brain for 2 hours, this will not do it. This is something you ponder and google search real-life events, places, and people after watching.

With a slow-moving movie such as this, you'd at least expect some sort of accuracy in terms of capturing the period of time the movie is portraying. Instead, you received politically correct contemporary "issues" inserted in the past. It's as if someone is seeking to make Percy Fawcett a millenial. Nina Fawcett is portrayed as a modern feminist rather than a suffragist. This distinction is lost on some people, as it was clearly lost on the actress, Sienna, who said the following: "I can't imagine what it would have been like to be a woman then, and I wanted to represent the frustrations of how that would have felt [as if she knew], and not ask for pity, which I think is an easy trap to fall into when you're playing someone who's raising children and is left behind. She was very defiant and I loved that about her." Yes... defiance... because that's the only thing a suffragist was doing.... As if you need another quote, but Sienna Miller further said the following: “I was worried she [Nina Fawcett] was just ‘a wife’ when I first read it [the script from The Lost City of Z],” Miller said. “I said, ‘I’m not going to do that. We really have to work and struggle and fight to give her her own story and her own voice.’ “ Yes... and whose voice was that? The real suffragists were far more interesting... Of course, someone could say that movies very seldom portray reality well... but what else does this movie have? Very little of it deals with exploration. About a third of the way through the movie abruptly takes you from Amazonia to England, which left the viewer wondering why we left and also wonder why a waterfall and bits of pottery in a jungle constitute a seemingly final moment in a journey. Almost immediately, one is thrown into a discussion in the Geographic Society about religion, slavery and how white people aren't the top of the food chain. I actually began laughing after it was over because it really came across like someone claiming that they "don't see color". No nuances, no real preservation of that period of time, no real exploration, no real character development... what the heck is there in this movie? Well, the cameraman did a good job...

It's ok. Not great, not terrible. Just...ok. On rewatching, I think the big failing is the lack of a character to root for. Charlie Hunam's performance is fine, it's just that the character is selfish and mostly unlikeable. Certainly not relatable. I'd classify it as an "I don't have anything better to watch" movie

Written and directed by James Gray, The Lost City of Z (2016) traces the life of British soldier and explorer Percy Fawcett. Fawcett (Charlie Hunnam) is compelled to scour the Amazon for evidence of a lost civilization. Along the way, he’ll repeatedly abandon his wife Nina (Sienna Miller) and his children and overcome resistance from skeptical colleagues, all to ultimately come up empty handed. It is based on a book of the same name by David Grann. I’ve been looking forward to seeing this film since its release, because it’s one of those real life stories more incredible than fiction. Percy Fawcett’s adventures inspired both Indiana Jones and Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel The Lost World (1912). Unfortunately, The Lost City of Z was less an adventure film and more a plodding, meandering biopic that never quite finds its footing. As the film opens, we see Percy Fawcett at the cusp of the British upper class. He is a major in the army, but has no medals; he goes on a hunt and kills the stag, but is not invited to dine on it. We see he’s skilled, daring, and willing to take risks. However, this isn’t quite an introduction. The film makers assume their audience already knows who Percy Fawcett is, but he is a relatively obscure historical figure, especially to American audiences. It’s crucial to quickly establish the identity of the main character and why he is important. Otherwise, you lose the audience’s attention. Thirteen minutes into the film, a plot finally appears. We learn Fawcett’s father was a gambling drunkard, and he is told that if he completes his mission to map the Bolivian border it will redeem his family name. Fawcett discovers pottery deep in the Amazon, but on his return to England, Royal Geographical Society members are skeptical that South American natives are capable of producing such artifacts. He convinces a few members to accompany him on another expedition, which turns up nothing. Fawcett goes off to fight in World War One where he’s wounded in a gas attack and later reconciles with his eldest son, Jack (Tom Holland). Jack convinces him to embark on one final expedition. We see them wander around the jungle for a while until they’re captured by an Amazon tribe and drugged, leading to a pointless flashback / hallucination before the screen fades to black. Back home, many years later, Nina presents the president of the Royal Geographical Society a compass Percy said he would send home if he ever found the lost city. Historically, no one knows what happened to Percy and Jack Fawcett, who disappeared on May 29, 1925, but it’s likely they were killed by hostile natives or succumbed to disease. Over the past several years, anthropologists have discovered concrete evidence of a lost civilization in the Amazon, near where Fawcett went missing. This film is more or less accurate, although it softens some of his unusual beliefs, including that the lost city of Z was an outpost for ancient extraterrestrial gods and a remnant of Atlantis. In one interesting scene, during the First World War, he’s shown consulting with “Madame Kumel” (Elena Solovey), a character based on psychic and occultist Madame Blavatsky. Although Fawcett was a devotee of Blavatsky’s, she died in 1891. The Lost City of Z somehow manages to make an incredible, real-life story boring. It suffers from lack of direction and plods along unmercifully for 141 minutes. The film should have started right in the middle of the action, on Fawcett’s last expedition. His personal history and previous expeditions could be retold through brief flashbacks. Instead, it takes so long to get to the point, then leaves audiences with a cheap teaser to make up for lack of a satisfactory conclusion. As a result, it bombed at the box office, grossing $8.57 million in U.S. sales off a $30 million budget. What a disappointment.

This is a movie about a exploration efforts of Percy Fawcett. He explored the jungles of Brazil and of Bolivia to map out the boarders of the countries. While there he finds a small amount of ruins and artifacts of an ancient civilization. He believes the ruins are part of a large ancient lost city. He returns to find all of the lost city to prove his claims and his expedition fails. One of the members of the expedition hinders their progress, steals food and causes multiple mishaps and sabotage that caused the expedition to fail. When he returns to England the world is at war and he has to fight as he is a colonel in the British army. He still dreams of finding the lost city. He is injured in the war by the gas used by the Germans. After he recovers he is worn down but his son convinces him to return to the Amazons and his son wants to go with him. Percy and his son Jack set off on a third expedition. They work to raise money and recruit a crew to go with them. On the expedition Percy and Jack are captured by an Indian tribe and held captive. A ceremony is held and they are drugged and sleep. They are gone for years and many fear that they are dead. A man from Brazil gives Percy’s wife his compass to give to the head of the geological society which helped finance his expedition. It was a signal that they found the lost city. Percy and Jack never returned home. Many search parties failed to find them. In the 21st century explorers found lost cities and roads in the Amazon jungle that they believed were Percy’s lost city Z. I am surprised that so many people gave this film a low rating. This is a good film and it realistically shows the type of things that explorers went through while looking for ancient relics. I enjoyed the film.

As someone who has yearned to explore space and meet all the other civilizations on their turf, this film hit close to my heart instead of ours. When you include the incredible talent of a star-studded cast led by the infectious Charles Hunman and ad in amazing scenery, mystique, and a solid portrayal of the early 20th century, mix it with a thrilling and lovely soundtrack. The type of direction only can create such a feeling of inclusion, and it easy to forget you are not part of the storyline and the expeditions. I never felt bored at any moment, given the entrancing nature of the directions and cinematography. However, what really gives this film and true story its guts and gusto is the tell-tale ongoing nature of most men to doubt, challenge, and accept what is new, odd, and hard to believe being so tenderly raised to the level of a higher ability to look outside yourself, and what you've always been taught to believe, and open your mind to what you must learn. Such is the plight of man in the 21st century, as we are heavy-laden with undeniable proof that there have been highly advanced civilizations on our planet long before homo-sapiens and that we are being watched and visited by numerous other species and other civilizations from within our own Galaxy and far beyond. This film is yet another lesson to those who refuse to grow and expand their minds and cultures and beliefs, that none of us know everything, and there is still so much more to learn about our own planet, let alone the entire Universe. If you find your self challenged by the notion of interplanetary visitors since the dawn of time, or that this lost city, having never been proven found, is real, let me remind you that the church almost hung galileo for stating with full knowledge that the Earth was round, and not flat. For any man to hold pre-conceived notions that they know it all or that things are impossible, I also point you to our space program and how quickly it has catapulted us further and further in our solar system and now beyond as satellites enter interspace and have sent us new and informed information about the Universe, Dark Matter, Bladkholes, and the newest possibility as of today in the news, physics outside the Standard Model we've only ever known. Coupled with another freshly recent discovery on how to turn on and shut off electromagnetism from afar, and you might realize we are yet infants of the universe, and aren't infants always looked after by the adults? Yes, it is time to awaken our inner minds, look beyond ourselves and what we know, be like Percy and Jack Fawcett, and seek to know and experience the unknown. It is the only way for man to keep surviving and expanding, which is the only way for eternal existence among the rest of the Universe. The Lost City of Z is inspiring and exciting if these are the things that thrill you, as well, and I highly recommend kicking back with the kids, family, or partner and enjoying the romanticism of this creation and masterpiece, to be honest! - Rainbow Reviews 🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈