THE LOST CITY OF Z REVIEWED
“The Lost City of Z” is everything I love and hate about James Gray in one film. The guy wants to be an auteur in the worst way. Hell, he’s the current heir apparent to the Cinematic Suckup Throne that was hand built on the careers of Bogdanovich and Cavett. It’s just that for every visual he nails down, he loses the heart of the material. Many previous reviewers make sure to ignore this facet, but focusing on the career best performances of Pattinson and Hunnam. While they are good, that still doesn’t explain the film.
Designed like a late era Lean film, it follows a proper British soldier as he tries to find glory. Taking on an expedition to chart an unexplored part of South America, Hunnam plays our hero over a 20 year stretch. The point is made to show how Fitzcarraldo a proper gentleman can get in the pursuit of status. What the film fails to do is tie that into anything substantial. Hunnam eventually gets that he lost his family in order to find people that don’t want him. We all learned something in this prolonged Afterschool Special.
You know what really irks me about this movie? It wasn’t even part of my April review slate. I purposefully sought this one on the advice of others. There’s a lesson that I thought I instilled in my readers and allies and whatever. Just because a film can ape the aesthetic of something you pine to see again…that doesn’t make it. Somewhere in the Syphillis outbreak that I call childhood nostalgia, so many now adults are reaching out for anything that feels secure. Pretty things and security are for assholes that don’t understand Art. Give it a stream/rental in the future, if you’re curious.
FILM STATS
- 2 hrs and 21 mins
- PG-13
- Amazon Studios
