The Lost City of Z (2017)

Directed by James Gray. Starring Charlie Hunnam, Robert Pattinson, Sienna Miller, Angus Macfadyen, Edward Ashley, Tom Holland, Clive Francis, Ian McDiarmid, Harry Melling, Franco Nero. [R]

Meticulous, transporting saga of English soldier-turned-explorer Percy Fawcett (Hunnam) and his all-consuming quest to venture into the uncharted jungles of the Amazon and uncover the fabled “Lost City of Z”. This forward-thinking-throwback of an epic adventure strives for some sort of best-of-both-worlds negotiation between Terence Malick’s elliptical lyricism and Werner Herzog’s imperialist obsessiveness, but there’s too much earthy physicality to the abstraction and too little definition of what unfounded quixotic impulses drive the initially-disinterested Fawcett to ever fully succeed on those terms. Instead, soak in the humid pleasures of its elegant atmosphere on both continents, the weathered details of its handsome production values, the methodical advances and retreats of the decades-spanning narrative, the simmering force of Fawcett’s imploding personality (hardly an admirable hero, and widely viewed as being even worse in real life than as depicted here). Bound to be too measured and elusive for some audiences, and the mysteries of the unknown prevent the satisfaction of a traditional climax, but patient and thoughtful viewers will find plenty to relish in its elegiac vortex of mystery and peril. Premiered at the New York Film Festival the year before its general release.

80/100