Very disappointing

Rating: 3/10 (20 August 2017)

As an avid viewer and collector of every film and book about exploration in South America and Africa, I could not wait to see this film. Living in rural America I had to wait for the download or DVD, but oh, was I ever disappointed! Rather than the multiple viewings of Augirre, Fitzcarraldo, the Mission, King Solomon's Mines, Rhodes, even Raiders of the Lost Ark and hokey old Republic movies, this film completely missed the mark. For one thing it was murky and dark. I checked the box to see if it was SD or Standard as the resolution was so poor. Where we should have had brilliantly clear images of the mountains and jungle, we got a few seconds, then back to the gloom. A lot of time seemed to be spent floating upriver on rafts.
The book by David Grann, on which the film was based, was a journalist's account of the life and subsequent disappearance of Col. Percy Fawcett who made seven expeditions to Amazon region, not three. Mr. Grann did not have much to work with, so like a good journalist, he hyped up what he had and speculated on the rest. Fawcett was an army officer who after serving 20 undistinguished years in Ceylon and faced with a lack of advancement, took a surveying course and was sent to impartially survey the borders of Peru and Bolivia on behalf of Britain to avoid hostilities. He made several trips, and after a break for WWI, in which he did not serve on the front line as shown in the film, being too old, he became obsessed with the idea of a lost city, which along with the discovery, would help British prestige by placing another jewel in the crown. At the time, British explorers had been planting the flag in Africa and spreading the good word throughout the savage world.
Fawcett may also have been driven by a desire to get there before the Americans, as Hiram Bingham's discovery of Machu Picchu had captivated the world's imagination. Captain Scott, whose ill fated expedition to the South Pole, where he was beaten by a Norwegian by 10 days and perished on the return journey, was regarded by an outraged Britain as a hero cheated of his rightful victory by that cad Amundssen's use of dogs! Make no mistake, the British firmly believed in the superiority of the British Empire, and that all future discoveries belonged to British gentleman by right, not Americans and foreigners! WWI was to shake that belief and any heroic exploits which could be seized on to beat the drum and restore the faith was seized upon.
The film conveys little of this. Where I expected longer sequences showing the hardships and near starvation and deaths endured by the explorers, we got three brief expeditions which might just as well have been a boy scouts weekend camping trip. One expedition failed after 10 days starvation, of which a photograph still exists of the emaciated survivors. Where were the clouds of biting insects which made sleep impossible, dangerous snakes dropping from trees, the 62 foot long Anaconda which was killed, waterlogged boots rotting from the damp? The journey to reach the expedition sites took months, usually overland from Buenos Aries, but the film gave the impression it was two days by air. One minute they are in the jungle, a few seconds later the ocean liner is being welcomed by cheering crowds in Britian.
Fawcett may not have been the heroic expert explorer that was portrayed by the press of the time, desperately searching for heroes and in the process glorifying some flawed men. In leaving his wife to raise their children alone he was really no different from Captain Scott and serving army officers posted to India and the far east and naval officers who left their families for years on end. He was a man of his time doing what was generally accepted. Had he not disappeared during a highly publicized expedition, he may very well have been forgotten. The one thing he was right about was the belief that there had previously been an advanced civilization in the Amazon. We now know from recent discovery and satellite images that there had indeed been an advanced culture which supported thousands of people, and that the remains have been swallowed by the jungle regrowth, and the descendants of a people and culture destroyed by the European discovery have fallen into a dark ages. Whether his belief in and attempts to discover a lost city were entirely scholarly, or motivated by fame and the possible discovery of gold, we don't know and probably never will.
To be fair and to give the film another chance, I will watch it again to see if my boredom (I switched off three times and went to do something else, including the washing and ironing) was just that I was not in the mood. Sometimes my opinion has changed on a second viewing.