The Lost City of Z: James Gray found (review)

With this film to be seen again tonight on Cstar, James Gray changes register but remains faithful to his obsessions.

The Lost City of Zthe beautiful adventure film by James Grayreturns to television a few days later his tribute to the Deauville festival. Here is the very enthusiastic review of Firstpublished upon its theatrical release in March 2017.

Since then, the American filmmaker has signed Ad Astra And Armageddon Timetwo equally interesting works.

In appearance, The Lost City of Z resembles a break in James Gray’s filmography: the usual descendants of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe have given way to a British squire in search of respectability. The change of environment is not only social, but also geographical: gone are the increasingly confined urban settings (in The Immigrantyou could hardly ever see the sky), welcome to a more primitive and spacious jungle. However, Gray found in David Grann’s documentary book, which traces the journey of an obsessive explorer, a reservoir of themes that he knows by heart: the thirst for freedom, destiny, family, heredity, obsession. As in his previous films, where the characters sought, in vain, to free themselves from their social determinism, it is the same motivation that drives the young officer Percy Fawcett, subjected to a cruel class contempt as we see at the beginning of the film. He has just killed a deer while hunting (a nod to Journey to the End of Hell), and while custom would have him invited to the table of the elite, a sycophant reminds us that this would be inappropriate since Fawcett was “somewhat unfortunate in the choice of his ancestors” (his father was an alcoholic). It is therefore in the hope of clearing his family’s name that he accepts a mission as a cartographer in the Amazon (a job that hides more political concerns aimed at preserving the interests of the Empire). During the expedition full of dangers, he is seized by the virus of adventure to the point of transforming himself into a Sisyphus of exploration: is he addicted to risk or does he really believe in the existence of an Eldorado?

James Gray: “I conceived Armageddon Time as a ghost story”

Blood ties

Alongside its story, Grann’s book also tells the story of the journalist’s obsession with his subject. James Gray does the same thing: by identifying with the explorer (even in his difficulties in financing his projects), he implicitly paints a portrait of a filmmaker in perpetual search of new forms. The result is sumptuous and exciting, even if Gray ploughs his furrow by once again illustrating his favourite theme, the irreducible ties of blood. We can imagine that, like the filmmaker’s previous heroes, Fawcett was trying to escape his family by going into the jungle. But it is to better return to his family. From this point of view, the domestic episodes, which see the explorer reunited with his wife (Sienna Miller) and children, take on an unprecedented importance in this kind of story. And as always with Gray, the balance ends up tipping in the right direction: after a phase of revolt motivated by Fawcett’s repeated absences, his eldest son ends up not only reconciling with his father, but adopting his cause.

Opera in the Jungle

The subject is so dense that Gray has trouble fitting it all in without exceeding two hours and twenty-one. He has therefore made drastic choices, made cuts, ellipses and potentially frustrating shortcuts. The viewer can compensate by relying on literary references (Conrad or Kipling, duly cited), and cinematographic references (John Huston, but also Cimino, Coppola, Herzog) which help to grasp the intention of the scenes if not to fully savor them. This optional use of citation does not make Gray a postmodern filmmaker. His staging is essentially classical, and the result of his collaboration with his usual composer Christopher Spellman and the director of photography Darius Khondji (who shot on film), evokes more a jungle opera than the traditional adventure film. In his next one, he will tackle science fiction. We await it with interest.

Charlie Hunnam Failed to Bond With Robert Pattinson on The Lost City of Z