marko@mako.UUCP (Mark O'Shea) (07/05/85)
Has Anyone seen "The Emerald Forest"? I haven't seen a review on it anywhere. It seems like a potentially good movie of the escape variety. Reviews anyone?
leeper@mtgzz.UUCP (m.r.leeper) (08/05/85)
THE EMERALD FOREST
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: THE EMERALD FOREST is an enjoyable fantasy film that
is by turns introspective, perceptive, and exciting. It contains a
fascinating--if not wholly believable--portrait of life in the rain forest.
As long as you don't take too seriously the claims that it is based on
truth, it is worth seeing. Rate it a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale.
It has been a while since I saw THE EMERALD FOREST, but it was during a
stint of 60-hour work weeks so I never got around to reviewing it then. In
response to a request, I will make some comments on it now. THE EMERALD
FOREST is John Boorman's mystical tale of the Indians of the Amazon rain
forest. Admittedly, once I say it is a Boorman film, it is a trifle
redundant to say that it also is mystical. Boorman, who is best known for
DELIVERANCE, ZARDOZ, and EXCALIBUR, always has an undertone of the mystical
in his films. My strong recommendation for this film is that the viewer
ignore the claims that this fantasy is based on a true story. Undoubtedly
there are incidents in this film that really happened, but there is also a
lot that anyone who does not read the NATIONAL ENQUIRER should recognize as
fantasy.
The story deals with an engineer (played by Powers Boothe) whose son is
kidnapped by a tribe called the "Invisible People." This sounds like a
ghastly criminal act, but by the end of the film it seems even to the viewer
as an act of compassion. Boorman turns the world inside out, making us see
a world in which the life of the Invisible People is natural and the non-
Indians are the strange and deadly invaders. Once our main character finds
his son a lot happens, both in the jungle and outside. Much of what happens
seems unrelated, but in fact, Boothe's entry into the jungle is really the
catalyst for everything that happens from that point on.
Boorman's film is beautifully photographed and scripted. The nature
photography is some of the best I have ever seen in a film in years. The
script makes the Indians comprehensible and likable. Unfortunately, I
cannot judge how accurate the portrait of Amazon culture is. Certainly
there is a bit of Robert Flaherty's or Pearl Buck's style in THE EMERALD
FOREST, and one never really felt that they were showing us a people, warts
and all. This seems a rather idealistic view of rain forest life. Perhaps
there is more virtue in the way the film makes us see ourselves as
strangers. For example, in a nice touch we see a young Indian woman
kidnapped for a local whorehouse and forced to wear clothing so that she can
do a striptease.
THE EMERALD FOREST is an enjoyable film fantasy about a culture not too
well known to most people. In many ways it is comparable to films like THE
LAST WAVE or even THE GODS MUST BE CRAZY. It is quite worth seeing.
Mark R. Leeper
...ihnp4!mtgzz!leeper