Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join in the fun by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and writing a bit about them!
This week on Thursday Movie Picks, we're going exploring! Let's see what we can find, shall we?
The Lost City of Z (James Gray, 2017) One of the most beautiful films of 2017, The Lost City of Z is based on the true story of explorer Percy Fawcett, a British officer tasked with surveying the border between Bolivia and Bravil in 1905. While on his journey, he hears tell of a mythical city covered in gold, and finds some artifacts that make him believe it. He returns to South America over and over again in his life trying to find it, eventually bringing his eldest son with him. Dealing as much with the home lives of British Imperialism as with the exploration of the South American rain forest, Gray's film is often fascinating, if a bit frustrating. But the cinematography is stunning, and the performances, from Charlie Hunnam, Robert Pattinson, Angus McFadyen, and even Sienna Miller, as Fawcett's wife.
Embrace of the Serpent (Ciro Guerra, 2016) Yes, it seems almost cruel to shoot a film about the glorious scenery of the Amazon in black and white, but just wait until you see this. The cinematography becomes utterly hypnotic, which is appropriate for the tale of two white explorers, thirty years apart, searching for a rare sacred plant with hallucinogenic powers. The stories are connected by one Amazonian native, Karamakate, and the film has a lot of very wise things to say about aging and regret, as well as imperialism and the nature of man to explore and his desire to rule. One of my all-time favorite cinema experiences, I remember being so stunned when I left the theater that I had to keep my phone off and just wander the streets for a good couple of hours while I digested this.
Interstellar (Christopher Nolan, 2014) A bit of a change of pace here, to outer space exploration. Nolan's grand epic offers (again) astonishing cinematography (although the constantly-shifting aspect ratios in IMAX 70mm drive me absolutely insane) and wonderful performances from its all-star cast, but it doesn't quite hold together. The bloated run-time and grandiose ambitions don't help, but what's really at fault here is the somewhat meandering screenplay, which is a really good second or third draft but needed some editing and a polish in order to become the best version of itself. It's a tremendous visual experience, but ultimately an almost-but-not-quite for me.
