reiher@ucla-cs.UUCP (07/04/85)
Ever since John Boorman has had the chance to direct the
films he wanted to make, he's been working on a single subject:
man's relation to nature, and particularly what has been lost by
modern society which was taken for granted by primitive man.
Boorman hasn't always been successful. "Deliverance", while it
worked nicely as suspense, didn't display his ideas very well.
"Exorcist II: The Heretic" was laughably bad, as only a really
ambitious film can be, and "Zardoz" was peculiar and ineffective.
With "Excalibur", Boorman began to get it right. "Excalibur" had
moments of power, and approached greatness. It fell short because
of Boorman's overambition, apparently his greatest artistic flaw,
manifested in this case by an attempt to shoehorn the whole of the
backbone of Arthurian legend into little over two hours. Now,
finally, Boorman has managed to find the perfect vehicle for his
obsessions. "The Emerald Forest" is everything hinted at in his
early films, brought to fruition.
Based on a true story, "The Emerald Forest" concerns a
father's hunt for his son, lost in the Amazonian jungle. The
search continues for ten years, as the son grows from a seven-
year-old boy to a seventeen-year-old man under the protection of
the Invisible People, a primitive tribe whose members paint their
bodies with emerald dust and other pigments to blend into the
forest. When the father finally finds his son, the boy become
man is fully one of the tribe, with a surrogate father and no
desire to leave. Ironically, however, the dam which the real father
has been constructing nearby threatens the Invisible People, both
immediately and in a subtler but more certain way in the long
run. The dam has displaced the Fierce People, a tribe of savage
cannibals, causing them to move into the hunting grounds of the
Invisible People. And the dam has provided power and an incen-
tive to bring more people into the area, resulting in a shrinkage
of the surprisingly delicate jungle before the inroads of men and
machinery. The body of the film concerns the tribe's attempt to
survive in the face of these threats.
An important subtext in almost all of Boorman's films has
been a belief in magic as practiced by primitive societies. Mag-
ic has an important place in "The Emerald Forest". Whether or
not Tomme, the son, actually joins souls with an eagle during his
hallucinatory initiation into manhood is less important than the
positive effect the experience has on him. But beyond mere effect,
Boorman is a believer in magic, which he sees as one of the important
things we have lost in our conversion to a society of machines
and science. Boorman doesn't condescend to the magicians. Some
of their efforts use tricks, and he doesn't step back from that.
But are the tricks effective? That is the question that interests
Boorman. Does the fact that the tribal chieftain palms a hot coal
rather than producing it from thin air make the cure associated with
it less effective? The chief himself is unconcerned with the
mechanics, willingly showing them to Tomme, who he regards as his
own son. And, Boorman suggests, perhaps it isn't all tricks. Perhaps
the primitive magics do have power of their own. Whether they do or
not, the tribe's use of magic is an important sign of their oneness
with nature. The Invisible People are a part of their world, not
competitors with it.
"The Emerald Forest" is a film in which everything works.
The direction, the photography, the performances, the score, the
production design, all contribute to the final effect. Boorman
is not your average director. Very often nowadays when I see a
film, I can easily predict what will happen next, in the sense of
what the next shot will be, what the angle will be, what the next
plot twist will be. I can do this because cinema has conven-
tions. Boorman isn't interested in conventions, and he has no
interest in explaining what he has already shown. He has the
courage and confidence to cut away from a scene when I expected
it to continue. The moment he did it, I saw that the convention-
al continuation would have been so much dead weight, though most
directors, even many talented ones, wouldn't think of doing without
it. Boorman gives his film an unconventional feel which invites,
almost demands, closer attention. But at other times, Boorman is
willing to linger to achieve his effects. "The Emerald Forest"
isn't a rollercoaster ride with the director snapping his whip
to hurry the viewer along (or else). It is a film which works
at its own pace rather than one dictated by other films or viewer
expectations.
The performances are excellent. Powers Booth stars as the
father obsessed with finding his son, driven by love and guilt.
Booth shows a more human, vulnerable face than in his past roles.
His character is a good man who, like most of us, hasn't thought
out the effects of his actions, indeed of his way of life. Char-
lie Boorman, the director's son, gives nepotism a good name in his
portrayal of Tomme. One moment of artifice in his performance and
the entire film would have come tumbling down. Boorman is splen-
didly natural in a part which could not have been played by the
typical Hollywood young lead actor. Meg Foster has what is,
honestly, a nothing part as the mother. What little she has to
do she does well. Rui Polonah is beautifully truthful as the leader
of the Invisible People. Like the other actors portraying the Indians,
Polonah is a city dwelling Indian. His comfort in the jungle en-
vironment, the absolute feeling of belonging that he gives could
never have been attained by a professional actor. All of the
performers playing tribespeople give their scenes an easy sense
of community which makes it possible to believe that we are
glimpsing the routines they perform every day.
Rospo Pallenberg's script is a fine piece of work. The dia-
log (much of it in subtitles) is good, the story is well paced,
and Pallenberg has some surprises which reveal the fundamental
differences between our world and that of the Amazonian tribes.
He displays a true understanding of their world, as much as any
outsider can understand it.
All of the technical work is splendid, from Philippe
Rousselot's clear, focused photography to Ian Crafford's well
timed editing to the part electronic, part native Amazonian score
by Junior Homrich and Brian Gascoigne. The body makeup done by
Peter Frampton deserves special note, as it is fundamental to the
identities of the two tribes. All details of production design
on "The Emerald Forest" merit praise.
If "The Emerald Forest" has a flaw, it is that the late mid-
dle of the film isn't quite up to what comes before. Halfway through
the film, I thought to myself, "If he can keep it up, Boorman
will have one of the best adventure films ever made, and one of
the most intellectually interesting ones, too". Boorman couldn't
quite keep it up. One of his major action scenes works well
enough, but doesn't have the extra thrill that sets a good scene
apart from a great one. Here, Boorman's disregard for convention
cost him something, for he didn't follow the standard way of do-
ing the scene, but didn't come up with a particularly interesting
alternative, either. He makes up for it by providing a good
finale, but I still wish he had done better with the earlier se-
quence.
The summer is progressing rather oddly. Several of the ex-
pected blockbuster action films have come up short of success,
while more serious films have proved to be unusually good. A
time of year normally blessed with little but fluff has turned
out to have much more substance than anyone predicted. "The Em-
erald Forest" is a particularly pleasing film, as it should ap-
peal to a broad range of viewers, both those who like adventure
films and those who prefer deeper material. "The Emerald Forest"
is one of the two or three best films of the year. See it in the
best theater possible, preferably in 70mm, Dolby sound, and a
special sound system (such as THX), as its visual scope and beau-
tifully mixed sound deserve the finest presentation available.
--
Peter Reiher
reiher@ucla-cs.arpa
soon to be reiher@LOCUS.UCLA.EDU
{...ihnp4,ucbvax,sdcrdcf}!ucla-cs!reiher