In the wake of Guardians of the Galaxy 2 and Wonder Woman, James Gray’s The Lost City of Z may have fallen off your must see list. Now that the film has hit DVD, the harrowing tale of Percy Fawcett and his journey to an unknown landscape is one you must experience for yourself. The film is a true story based off David Grann’s nonfiction best seller.
Charlie Hunnam plays Percy Fawcett, a British explorer who was sent out into the Amazonian wilderness to map the region at the dawn of the 20th century. Little was known not only about the land he would encounter but the people as well. I must agree with many critics of the movie, Gray tries to fit Fawcett’s entire life in the film which takes away from the journey itself. The film is of course a true story, but becomes fiction as the story had to be adapted for modern audiences.
Fawcett, the real life explorer, was quite different from the humanitarian Hunnam portrayed. Fawcett was a racist who had a hard time conceptualizing how the “savages” living in the Amazon could have been responsible for the advanced way of living he was encountering. He instead hosted a theory speculating the existence of “white Indians” who were Europeans who made their way across the Atlantic and settled in the jungle. Hunnam creates a character who the audience is rooting for, hoping he reaches his lost city, and ultimately feeling cheated when we get no where by the end of the movie. We want him to succeed because he genuinely cares about the native people as well as the journey he is on. Except, he did not, and the ——
The real Fawcett, really did not discover anything. He never made it to the lost city, and did not find anything spectacular on the way there. The movie ends with Fawcett and his son, being carried away by a tribe to what we can only believe is their deaths. In reality, Fawcett and his son were accompanied by his son’s best friend Raleigh Rimmell. There are multiple reasons Gray would have left Rimmell out, but the main reason people speculate is because of time restraints. The movie runs 140 minutes, and is packed from the opening credits with sensational images and a lot for viewers to process. What it is missing is a step towards the Lost City of Z or any information regarding the city.
While the movie is enthralling and visually stunning, audiences are left feeling mundane about what we accomplished in such a long run time. Thankfully the movie is packed with talent; Sienna Miller plays Fawcett’s independent wife, and Robert Pattinson portrays Fawcett’s aide-de-camp. Miller expresses her desire to explore with her husband, saying if she survived childbirth she can survive the jungle. Pattinson exists as a steady role throughout the movie, offering humor in dire situations and a fresh perspective to Fawcett’s delusional search.
Although the film veers off course of the truth, Gray produces a visual masterpiece celebrating an explorer on the journey to his destiny; whether or not the journey is to the truth.
#JamesGray directs #CharlieHunnam in an illuminated jungle. See #TheLostCityofZ in theaters: https://t.co/dVh4CVCaj6 pic.twitter.com/omBXDJO5jX
— Lost City of Z (@lostcityofz) May 12, 2017
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