2016 Directed by James Gray
A true-life drama in the 1920s, centering on British explorer Col. Percy Fawcett, who discovered evidence of a previously unknown, advanced civilization in the Amazon and disappeared whilst searching for it.
Charlie Hunnam Robert Pattinson Sienna Miller Tom Holland Edward Ashley Angus Macfadyen Ian McDiarmid Clive Francis Matthew Sunderland Johann Myers Aleksandar Jovanović Yelena Solovey Bobby Smalldridge Tom Mulheron Daniel Huttlestone Murray Melvin Harry Melling Michael Jenn Michael Ford-FitzGerald Franco Nero Frank Clem Bethan Coomber David Calder Stacy Shane Pat Mooney Nicholas Agnew Richard Croxford Niall Cusack Colin Carnegie Show All…
Northern Ireland Screen Plan B Entertainment Sierra/Affinity MICA Entertainment MadRiver Pictures Keep Your Head
La cité perdue de Z
If not for the ineffably modern hollowness of Charlie Hunnam’s speaking voice, or the distinct rind of 21st century celebrity that still clings to co-star Robert Pattinson like the dying traces of yesterday’s cologne, someone could easily be fooled into thinking that “The Lost City of Z” was shot 40 years ago. In fact, that might be the greatest compliment a viewer could pay writer-director James Gray (“The Immigrant”), a man who seems increasingly determined to revive the glory days of our national cinema, when movie were pictures and auteurs were mavericks. Gray pulls from the past as liberally as Quentin Tarantino, but without the ego — he doesn’t try to process his influences through the slaughterhouse of his own…
98
Percy Fawcett, the subject under a dual-microscope in James Gray's latest memory flip-book, forces the viewer to reconsider Adventure - as a genre and as a daydream - through immense meditation to his particular obsessions and mystifying personal narrative. Being both a product of colonialism and a primitive prognosticator of empathetic relations to other cultures, he's a White Explorer desperately trying to rebel against the stigma even as he continues to roam the jungle in search of a fabled city spoken in whispers and translations comprised of miscommunication. Whether he reached his destination is unknown, but Fawcett's idealism feeds Gray's melancholic grasp on clinical study and, without revealing the trick, his own personal interpretation of the story. The Lost…
It's rare to find a movie these days that believes in adventure and sincerity and pure storytelling as interchangeable qualities, and lives up to all of them.
me: i'm tired of white men
charlie hunnam:
me: actually can i have five more of these little blonde bitches?
To dream to seek the unknown. To look for what is beautiful is its own reward. A man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?
52/100
Knew basically zilch about this going in—the book hadn't crossed my path, and I avoid reading anything at all about films I definitely plan to see. So I just assumed it to be an entirely original work, since that's all Gray had previously made (apart from Two Lovers being partially/vaguely inspired by Dostoyevsky, which I'd forgotten was even the case until I fact-checked this sentence). Sometime after Fawcett returns from his second expedition and resigns from the Royal Geographical Society, however, it became clear to me that I was watching a story based on actual events, simply because no screenwriter would ever fashion such a disjointed narrative from scratch. And if I'm sitting there thinking "this is so unsatisfying,…
Percy's ambitions of finding Z reflect that of Gray's ambitions with his biggest project to date. Reminiscent of the films of David Lean, The Lost City of Z is a marvel of a film that packs a surprising emotional punch. Gray's themes of family continue and deepen more with this astonishing film. I couldn't stop looking at it. Images that feel reminiscent of Paths of Glory and Apocalypse Now are great but Gray adds his own spin to keep it fresh. So many amazing images that it's too much t unpack on a first viewing. That final shot is an all timer. This confirms that James Gray is the next great American Director. Let's all bow down to a true master.
98
Gray's triumph over the tricky delicacy and tenderness of a well-timed match cut is nothing less than majestic. One in particular, matching a household fixture with a remnant of the front in WWI, reorients the space as one environment, both wasting moments as Fawcett yearns for the winding greenery and mysteries of the Jungle once again, shackled to necessities of family and honor. Just a remarkable, remarkable work.
Uneasy mixture of magpie 20th century references (that annoying slow zoom in many classical shots) and very trendy "enlightened" politics. Why is it more interesting to depict Fawcett as not really white, not like the other white men, instead of as he was: a racist Buddhist whose search for the City of Z was a search for an advanced society formed by "white Indians." The character becomes dulled by the writing, then dulled even further by Hunnam's jockish & opaque performance w/ no eccentricity.
The only reason to make this character less interesting by modernizing him is because he is such a clear stand in for Gray and his struggle to make movies. It would be unacceptable, then, for him to…
"am i dreaming this?.."
"... i think i was dreaming"
reconciling a vision of the truly wondrous with the deeply rooted failure of the human condition—our spirituality, humanity, dreams (reflected tangibly or not), inseparable from the horrors of imperial "peace", senseless bloodshed and the very nature of time. there's very little distinction between the victory and the cost when the whole world has set itself afire... a single destination with many delirious, mysterious roads.
Fuck man. I have no words. I watched this film about two years ago and knew immediately after that it was a 5 star film. I watched it again a few weeks later, still very much obsessed with it but before today, I hadn’t seen it since. For me, rewatching a beloved movie that I haven’t seen in awhile can be a scary thing because in the back of my mind, I always have that “what if this isn’t as good as I remember it being” question. Well this wasn’t as good as I remember it being. It’s fucking better. My mind was reblown all over again.
This made my top FIVE favorite films of the 2010 decade. Yes, DECADE.…
The Lost City of Z est finalement une histoire d’amour, celle d’un explorateur pour une région du monde qui a tant à offrir. Loin de la destruction que l’Homme provoque aujourd’hui en Amazonie, le Percy Fawcett du réalisateur James Gray est un homme passionné et respectueux de son environnement. Plus que par un narcissisme démesuré, c’est sa volonté de faire découvrir au monde une région unique qui le pousse à y retourner inlassablement. Et à l’occasion, on nous offre un très beau film, probablement l’un des tous meilleurs de 2017.
Ma critique complète : latentationculturelle.fr/2018/01/04/the-lost-city-of-z-lexploration-a-laventure/
91/100...It was around 90 seconds into his performance when I said "Holy Shit...that's Robert Pattinson
It’s like you keep searching for something LOST, but that thing keeps eluding you. Then it finally finds you, and consumes you, until you become LOST.
This could’ve been a shorter and more straight to the point film, but The Lost City of Z has a certain charm that unfortunately doesn’t work for me.
An excitingly dull walk through the Amazon, which is pretty much an epic oxymoron.
James Gray, consistently solid indie auteur.
The color grade in the Irish exterior scenes really threw me. It’s like someone said “it’s Ireland! They like green! Make the mid tones as green as you can!” Really weird stuff considering how beautiful the rest of the movie is.
“There’s no sense in going further—it’s the edge of cultivation,”
So they said, and I believed it—broke my land and sowed my crop—
Built my barns and strung my fences in the little border station
Tucked away below the foothills where the trails run out and stop.
Till a voice, as bad as Conscience, rang interminable changes
On one everlasting Whisper day and night repeated—so:
“Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the Ranges—
“Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!”
—“The Explorer,” Rudyard Kipling, 1898
“My Percy, I know your first instinct will be to grieve, but I adjure you rather to consider our son and the love you must show him.…
I still can’t believe it’s only been a century since we’ve rediscovered Machu Picchu
Boy did Darius snap on this one. A beautiful film that doesn’t totally get there in its execution but delivers in its messaging.
I always thought this was impeccably made but I could not have predicted how much I’d love watching it this time. Knowing the atypical multi-journey structure makes me just bathe in it instead of being taken aback. Similarly the odd forced loyalty to history’s fractured adventure makes for one of the best director parallels. “You just got back and you’re leaving us again because you just have to explore this obsession?”
Sienna Miller is phenomenal. She is the story, her speeches its viewpoint and politics, her desires refusing to be only subplot. It’s said a lot, but the final half hour is unending magic. You gotta stan just about every James Gray movie but I think this is the best of all.
Double feature suggestions: Romancing the Stone, The Mission, The Immigrant, Road to Perdition, Peterloo, High Life.
#3 of 2017.
Julps2 430 films
Pretty self-explanatory, "older films" must've come out at least 20 years ago. Primarily based on director's influences and recommendations. The…
Tori 🐛 522 films
*NOTE “foreign film” is, like everything, a dumb made up concept. it’s a concept that has A LOT to do…
Tobias Andersen 7,997 films
Rules: Generate a number (from 1 to x) via: www.random.org
See how many number of films there are in the…
Malaine 2,018 films
Replicated film poster designs. A (never-ending?) work in progress. This list is getting long so I moved some sections to…
mattyfastwheelz 1,342 films
Jayce Fryman 18,696 films
This list collects every film from the Starting List that became They Shoot Pictures Don't They's 1000 Greatest Films. This…
Oscar Lau 999 films
The latest 2020 edition of TSPDT The 21st Century's Most Acclaimed Films (www.theyshootpictures.com/21stcentury.htm)
Missing in Letterboxd: 629th: The Wire (2002-2008)
travis kyker 43 films
The ideal cigar film is: long, steady, and deliberately paced; aesthetically or narratively cinematic; not especially exciting, but indelibly sensuous…
benseerocker 1,913 films
The Big Picture’s Long List is every single movie that gets mentioned on The Ringer’s Big Picture podcast this year,…
Pol 7,313 films
Actualizado el 02/08/2020
(Casi) todas las películas disponibles en Filmin. Esta lista ha sido generada automáticamente con datos de justwatch.com/es…
Nicconoh 100 films
Based on this article by Indiewire.
(just wanted to check how many of them i've watched already)
Hunter Morris 1,489 films
This is a list of every movie I've ever seen ranked from favorite to least favorite. (This is entirely personal…
