Percy Fawcett 1867-1925?

Rating: 8/10 (16 July 2017)

No doubt that Percy Fawcett has shuffled off this mortal coil in at least the year 1925. The British explorer and his son vanished in the deep Amazon jungle in that year on a quest to find Fawcett's fabled Lost City Of Z(ed)which is how they would say it across the pond.
His quest proved to be his undoing. He was convinced that evidence of this city showing a high civilization deep in the tributary country that make up the Amazon. Quests for lost cities did in Spanish conquistadors like Hernando DeSoto. Coronado looked for his 7 cities of gold in the American southwest and Ponce DeLeon died in Florida looking for the Fountain Of Youth.
Seeing the story of the real Fawcett makes me think he was the inspiration for Arthur Conan Doyle's George Challenger and those stories regarding the Lost World he sought in the same area.
Fawcett had a home and hearth as well. Sienna Miller plays his wife and Robert Pattinson of the Twilight series plays his son in his last years. Fawcett is played by Charles Hunnam and all distinguish themselves in their performances. Fawcett's domestic life was hardly serene as his wife wished he'd be home more instead of weeks and months at a time when he would leave her with yet another mouth to feed.
Like Francois Villon, Jean Lafitte, and Amelia Earhart whose last days are unknown and open to speculation, Fawcett's have also been ripe with argument. The scenes here with Hunnam and Pattinson resolved to meet whatever fate awaits them with the Amazon tribes they encountered are beautifully played and sure to illicit an emotional response.
The cinematography is stunning, it looks a lot like the Scorsese film The Mission. The cast is perfect and the film is quite the tribute to one intrepid explorer.