The Lost City of Z (2016)

Directed by: James Gray | 140 minutes | action, adventure, biography, drama, history | Actors: Charlie Hunnam, Robert Pattinson, Sienna Miller, Tom Holland, Edward Ashley, Angus Macfadyen, Ian McDiarmid, Clive Francis, Pedro Coello, Matthew Sunderland, Johann Myers, Aleksandar Jovanovic, Elena Solovey, Bobby Smalldridge, Tom Mulheron, Daniel Huttlestone, Nathaniel Bates Fisher, Murray Melvin, Harry Melling, Michael Jenn, Franco Nero, Bethan Coomber, David Calder,

A thirst for knowledge can be as addictive as any mind-altering drug in the world. One can lose oneself in the search for science, for the unknown. Nothing matters anymore except that one missing piece in the puzzle. That last part that makes every setback on the way to it more than worth the trip. A conviction that Captain Ahab must also have had in his perpetual hunt for the white whale Moby Dick from the book of the same name. Major Percy Fawcett has one such shortcoming to overcome in ‘The Lost City of Z’. We follow the commander, who is also an adventurer and cartographer, in the early twentieth century on his quest for the lost city of Z. An undertaking that makes every setback pale as snow in the sun. However?

With ‘The Lost City of Z’, director James Gray gives us a grand biopic about the aforementioned discoverer Percy Fawcett (Charlie Hunnam), an aristocrat who tries to rise up despite his “unfortunate choice of ancestors”. To restore his surname to its full glory, he is tasked with preventing a conflict over the rubber trade by mapping the border between Brazil and Bolivia. Fawcett goes for prestige, but after discovering the traces of an ancient civilization, he becomes obsessed with the jungle and the people who live there. He plans to lead multiple expeditions to eventually find the lost city from which he could only find scraps of pottery on his first journey.

What will be most impressive in ‘The Lost City of Z’ are the acting and the camera work. It’s not just Hunnam, who does a great job as the central figure, that impresses; but also Sienna Miller and Robert Pattinson provide a solid interpretation of the cast with their performances. Miller convinces as the always optimistic and free-spirited Nina Fawcett, and both she and Pattinson, who takes on the role of fellow adventurer Henry Costin, add color to the film’s more light-hearted moments. Hunnam finishes the triumvirate by having a great chemistry with both players, which together form a good foreground for the beautiful cinematography.

However, ‘The Lost City of Z’ falls into the obvious pitfalls that often characterize a biopic. For example, the pace of the print is very slow and certain interesting story elements are rushed to show the broadest possible story. Without giving too much away, the end of the film does not necessarily feel like a conclusion, the story simply stops. A better focus could probably have provided a tighter script here so that the story could have some breathing room. Now there are big parts that could have been deepened and other parts that maybe just didn’t need to be in there.

Despite the fact that the storytelling leaves something to be desired, it is still very interesting. Percy Fawcett is a very intriguing person to follow and it can be seen that a lot of care has gone into the film. The camera work in particular ensures that the viewer sometimes imagines himself in the jungle, and perhaps becomes just as enamored with it as Fawcett himself. But it’s the acting that makes ‘The Lost City of Z’ a fine biopic, an asset to the genre.