The Lost City of Z

— I was surprised at how captivating this film was. It's based on a nonfiction book about Percy Fawcett, a Brit who was convinced there was a lost city in the Amazonian jungle and spent his lifetime mounting expeditions trying to find it. Charlie Hunnam does a very believable job as Percy and conveys the explorer’s spirit on the verge of obsession. Since much of journey is in the jungle, the scenes are often in shade or candlelight or moonlight and there are times when you yearn for the sun, for some brightness ahead, but always there’s uncertainty about what lies in the distance. We also get a good look at Percy’s family life when he isn’t exploring and of his time in the trenches at the Somme in WWI. Some of the most interesting scenes revolve around the changing relation between Percy and his oldest son, practically abandoned as a child by his father while spending so much time on expeditions, but who grew to be similarly curious about the unknown, shifting the focus from one generation to the next. It is an odd throwback of a movie, not seeming to want to exist as much more than a story of discovery—of the lost city and of the main character.

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[2016. 141 min. Directed by James Gray. Starring Charlie Hunnam, Robert Pattinson, and Sienna Miller.]
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-lost-city-of-z-2017