Three stars. Rated PG-13, violence, disturbing images, nudity and brief profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.21.17
Toward the end of this ambitious
historical drama, a key character observes that a man’s reach should exceed his
grasp.
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| As Fawcett (Charlie Hunnam, front) guides their boat ever deeper into uncharted Amazonian waters, his companions — from left, Manley (Edward Ashley), Murray (Angus Macfadyen) and Costin (Robert Pattinson) — warily watch for unfriendly tribesmen. |
Sadly, that’s precisely the case
with director/scripter James Gray’s disappointing The Lost City of Z. He’s simply unable to wrap his arms around the
enormity of this saga.
The film’s subject, Lt. Col.
Percival Harrison Fawcett, certainly deserves to be brought to the attention of
modern audiences. The early 20th century British geographer, artillery officer
and explorer, most famous for his eight mapping and archaeological expeditions
to Brazil’s Amazon region, was fictionalized by no less than Arthur Conan
Doyle, in a series of Professor Challenger novels and short stories published
between 1912 and ’29.
Much more recently, Fawcett is
rumored to have inspired a certain Indiana Jones.
By all accounts, Fawcett took his
work more seriously than these pop-culture counterparts, but that’s no excuse
for Gray to deliver such a grim, dreary and bloodless depiction of the man’s
exploratory career. Charlie Hunnam’s portrayal of Fawcett is withdrawn and
stoic; even the man’s moments of triumph feel muted, as if Hunnam can’t figure
out how to depict genuine excitement.
His Fawcett simply isn’t very
interesting.
This can’t be Hunnam’s fault; he
has demonstrated plenty of charisma and thespic talent in projects that range
from his lead role in 2002’s Nicholas
Nickleby, to his popular Jax Teller in TV’s Sons of Anarchy. The blame for Hunnam’s subdued performance here
belongs fully to Gray, who obviously wished Fawcett to be presented in what
often seems a trance-like state.
Actually, much of the film feels
like a fever dream, thanks in great part to Darius Khondji’s shimmering
cinematography and Christopher Spelman’s understated, almost hypnotic
orchestral score. Both contribute to the film’s atmosphere of surreal
obsession: a Joseph Conrad/Heart of
Darkness tone that was captured far better by Francis Ford Coppola (Apocalypse Now) and Werner Herzog (Fitzcarraldo).
Despite Gray’s passive depiction
of Fawcett, at least we learn something about the man, and what drives him ...
although it could be argued that our knowledge mostly springs from what we observe
during his interactions with his progressive wife, Nina, played with spunk and
effervescence by Sienna Miller. She gives the film some desperately needed
emotional vigor.
