The Lost City of Z

The Lost City of Z (2017) is about a British officer searching for a lost city in the Amazon, based on a real man. Percy Fawcett is a soldier whose career has stalled. He is sent to map the border between Bolivia and Brazil. In the jungle he finds pottery and traces of agriculture and draws a conclusion: there was an advanced civilisation here. The claim is mocked in London. The view of the period is that no civilisation could have been built in the Amazon and that the peoples there are primitive. Fawcett refuses it and goes back again and again. The real subject is what that obsession costs. He does not see his children grow, his wife spends years alone, and each time he returns to the jungle. In 1925 he went for the last time with his eldest son and both disappeared. No bodies were found and dozens of search expeditions followed; some of those were lost too. Later archaeology has largely vindicated him. Traces of extensive settlements and agricultural systems have been found in the Amazon. It is adapted from David Grann's book. James Gray directed; it was shot on 35mm with almost no digital colour grading. Charlie Hunnam, Robert Pattinson and Sienna Miller star. Miller's character argues directly about women being excluded from expeditions. A First World War section sits in the middle and interrupts the story. The last scene is left ambiguous. It runs 141 minutes. Good for: stories of exploration, period drama, and true events. Less good for: it is long and slow, and its colonial perspective is sometimes left unexamined.