PDA

View Full Version : The Lost City of Z (James Gray)



Watashi
04-21-2017, 07:19 AM
http://redcarpetrefs.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/maxresdefault.jpg

IMDb (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1212428/)

Watashi
04-21-2017, 07:25 AM
There's a lot in this movie. Part Heart of Darkness, part WWI movie, part British Empire colonialism conquest, part father-son story, part women's liberation. Even at 140 minutes, this film feels like it should a 200+ epic from yesteryear. There's a lot left undiscovered in the jungle and on the WWI battlefield. I would love to see how long Gray's original cut is. What is in there is wonderful stuff.

Henry Gale
04-21-2017, 02:15 PM
Been really looking forward to this one, but sad I had to miss a screening for it last night.

Hope to catch up with it soon. Gray really is one of the most underappreciated filmmakers around, and I base that almost solely on Two Lovers and The Immigrant. What's the consensus on his work prior?

Mal
05-07-2017, 02:35 AM
Dug it, very much. Stellar camera work and Sienna Miller is perfect as the unassuming heart of Fawcett's journey.

Ivan Drago
05-11-2017, 04:40 AM
There's a lot in this movie. Part Heart of Darkness, part WWI movie, part British Empire colonialism conquest, part father-son story, part women's liberation. Even at 140 minutes, this film feels like it should a 200+ epic from yesteryear. There's a lot left undiscovered in the jungle and on the WWI battlefield. I would love to see how long Gray's original cut is. What is in there is wonderful stuff.

I went in thinking it was more of a psychological thriller with Fawcett going mad with obsession (I didn't watch any trailers), but this movie completely blew away my expectations with its commitment to naturalistic performances from its cast, phenomenal editing, and an ethereal tone especially toward the end, which is unique for an epic. I'm also ready to declare James Gray the master of composing a final shot. This is only going to get better with time.

Stay Puft
05-15-2017, 04:50 AM
I'm also ready to declare James Gray the master of composing a final shot.

I thought the closing shot in The Immigrant was sort of awkward and poorly composited, but I'll agree that he executes very well here.

The entire ending sequence, starting with the capture, is breathtaking. The nonlinear montage with Fawcett raising his hand in the air, the dinner scene, the shots of Fawcett in the corner as his wife gives birth, the poem, and that final exchange, I love you dad, I love you son, to finally being carried away toward the lights (torches? fires?) in the distance across the river... just... wow. I was speechless. I felt my soul stirring, the whole weight of existence. "A man's reach should always exceed his grasp."

There was a lot of little things that bothered me along the way, to the point that I want to believe there's a longer cut that irons out some of the wrinkles (many having to do with the hurried nature of some sequences, a lack of development on some important story elements). This is a big, sprawling film, and like Wats suggests, there's so many ideas fighting for screen time that they don't all necessarily hit their mark. But James Gray has nevertheless worked some crazy magic here, and I'd say this is probably his greatest achievement to date (I would only pause at this point because maybe, maybe I still prefer Two Lovers). It's such an elegant and monumental piece of filmmaking. By the end, I was thoroughly overwhelmed by the immense experience of it all, and found myself sitting in the theatre in a stunned awe.

I loved it, and I can't stop thinking about it.

Pop Trash
05-16-2017, 06:06 AM
I thought the closing shot in The Immigrant was sort of awkward and poorly composited, but I'll agree that he executes very well here.


Oof. That final shot in The Immigrant is one of my favorite shots of recent years.

I appreciated this more than I really loved it. Seeing it with my audibly bored parents didn't help matters. I think the problem is the disjointed quality. I get that he didn't want the film to be five hours or whatever, but the time in the jungle seemed rather truncated. I still liked it quite a bit, and all the scenes on their own work quite well. I loved the match cut from pouring liquor down the drain to a moving steam train. So David Lean, that. James Gray is one of the last of a dying breed (along with Scorsese, Tarantino, and the two Andersons) of American filmmakers who really get the old school visceral feeling of theatrical cinema.

Lazlo
05-16-2017, 02:17 PM
Agree with much of what people have said already. It's a beautiful movie.

Its achilles heel is Charlie Hunnam, who always has such a strange way of delivering lines that his performances are uniformly distancing. He's a mediocre actor. There are times, especially the finale, that he does well here, but his way of distinctly enunciating every syllable is a problem to me. Has been in every movie I've seen him in. It's like he's an American struggling with a British accent, but that's not the case, so, yeah, weird. The original casting of Brad Pitt could have made this movie a lot better, though he may already be too old for the younger parts and struggled with the accent.

Peng
07-29-2017, 01:37 PM
An hour and a Charlie Hunnam-less lead role away from a masterpiece. Both come to a head when the film transitions to second half, in which the truncated timeline makes the story shift rather narratively unsatisfying, further compounded by Hunnam, serviceable otherwise, not conveying the passage of time and how it might affect Fawcett internally at all. Enraptured by that first hour though. Scene after scene of gorgeous images, intoxicating atmosphere, and lush textures, all with plot momentum that captures the fevered mindset of an obsessed man slowly but surely. Also a knock-out of final 20 minutes, in which some must go where rationality cannot follow them, and some must live in the unknown. That contrast is extraordinary in its lingering sadness and haunting power, encapsulated whole with yet another stunning Gray's final shot. 8/10

Ezee E
07-30-2017, 03:50 AM
Not sure I understand the raves here. For such a cool environment, it seems like all the critical scenes are ones I've already experienced in other movies. There's nothing that stands out from the other jungle movies that we've already seen. Whereas Gray can do some amazing suspense in We Own the Night, or display great characters in Immigrant/Two Lovers, there's never really any of that here. Cinematography is good.... I guess. But I expect more from Gray at this point.

Ivan Drago
10-25-2017, 06:47 PM
This is only going to get better with time.

Sure enough, it was. My review:

https://615film.com/2017/10/25/hidden-streaming-gems-the-lost-city-of-z-amazon-prime/

Neclord
10-25-2017, 07:02 PM
I thought this was pretty great.

Rico
10-26-2017, 11:33 AM
Could have used some zombies.

Devlin
11-02-2017, 02:04 PM
A beautiful film. Sometimes just a way a movie is filmed is enough to captivate me, but there is so much more here. While it's not perfect, I was absorbed by the experience. It has a kind of Malick feel to it. And while it was a slow moving film, I think if it were fleshed out more with about thirty more minutes this would have been even better. What is there, though, is quite impressive.

dreamdead
12-29-2017, 09:51 AM
Perhaps a bit more emotionally inert than the best of Gray's films (Two Lovers, The Immigrant), but the skill and craft exhibited throughout are stunning. I wish the film lingered more on Fawcett's inability to be content while in England, which would have lent greater weight to whether or not his son is correct in suggesting that he uses the trips as an escape rather than doing it all for his family. That said, that final shot is a marvel, and the last twenty minutes are especially marvelous in their open-endedness, in their dreamy quality.

I wish Miller had just a bit more to do after her great speech, too. It hinted at a more complex treatment of the patient wife trope, even though it eventually fell back on it.

Pop Trash
01-09-2018, 05:25 PM
Strangely, this is still my top film of 2017 simply by default. I would have expected something to knock it out in the last six months of 2017, but, nope.

Weems
01-09-2018, 09:32 PM
Strangely, this is still my top film of 2017 simply by default. I would have expected something to knock it out in last six months of 2017, but, nope.

I feel the same, and I don't like this movie nearly as much as I do Two Lovers. 2017 was a terrible movie year IMO.

Pop Trash
01-09-2018, 10:26 PM
I feel the same, and I don't like this movie nearly as much as I do Two Lovers. 2017 was a terrible movie year IMO.

I think there are many very good films (Lady Bird, BR 2049, Get Out, Logan Lucky, mother!, The Last Jedi), but I haven't seen anything that truly knocked my socks off. Maybe Phantom Thread will change that. This is mostly my #1 because James Gray (again) gets forgotten when it comes to year-end accolades.

Ezee E
01-11-2018, 05:46 AM
I feel the same, and I don't like this movie nearly as much as I do Two Lovers. 2017 was a terrible movie year IMO.

I'll have to go back and look, but it's been one of the better years over the last 3-5 at least.

Izzy Black
01-12-2018, 09:21 PM
2017 was weak, but this was not. This one is special.

Characters in quixotic adventure films are often opaque. I like that Gray goes deep into the psychological trauma of history, culture, and family to provide a rich portrait of his characters. This film is ambitious in its scope, even as Gray was limited in his budget. I concur with others that a longer cut would have been amazing. Nonetheless a majestic experience. Another near masterpiece from Gray. I still think The Immigrant is his magnum opus, but it's close.

Pop Trash
01-13-2018, 07:30 AM
I also like James Gray films because they get the elusive creature known as Izzy Black to come out of his winter hibernation.

ledfloyd
01-14-2018, 02:25 AM
Gray really is one of the most underappreciated filmmakers around, and I base that almost solely on Two Lovers and The Immigrant. What's the consensus on his work prior?

I don't care much for We Own the Night, but The Yards is great.

Pop Trash
01-15-2018, 05:39 AM
I don't care much for We Own the Night, but The Yards is great.

I think We Own the Night is worth watching. The story is boilerplate ("two brothers caught on opposite sides of the law...it's a thin blue line between love and hate!") but the direction, cinematography, and performances elevate it. There's a really cool car chase scene set in pouring rain.

Grouchy
07-08-2018, 02:00 PM
Someone should have warned me that this was so great. The comparisons to David Lean are well earned as he was in my head for much of the movie, specially with the matchcut between whisky down the drain / the train. Gray handles a unique tone and a great variety of themes, so that the film works both like a classic adventure epic and a contemporary revision of those great stories. And of course, the real story of Percy Fawcett is fascinating stuff to build a movie around - I'm surprised at my ignorance on those matters.

I was as weary of Charlie Hunham as I always am but I was actually pleasantly surprised by his performance. I also have to wonder what a better actor would have been like but it's not like he brought down the film or anything. Pattinson was great in comparison, though.

Skitch
02-27-2019, 09:58 PM
Much of this movie was quite well done and interesting.

Then the ending.

Fuck this movie.

Pop Trash
04-27-2019, 03:49 PM
Much of this movie was quite well done and interesting.

Then the ending.

Fuck this movie.

What?? The ending is very good. Dat last shot.

Skitch
04-27-2019, 04:12 PM
What?? The ending is very good. Dat last shot.

The ending was made up bullshit. Sure it looked pretty, but it was totally invented. If they were never seen again, then who knows what happened to them? They could've tripped on a twig and broke a leg and got eaten by animals. And for him to be so dumb as to take his child into that deadly situation that he barely survived twice...just ignorant. Maybe he secretly hated his kid.

Edit: Its just my issue with "based on a true story" movies. If it had been totally fictional, I wouldn't care.