Virtue Signaling in the Amazon
According to the 2009 book The Lost City of Z, survival in the Amazon is so punishing that tribes living in its darkest regions kept no history and had no religion. God himself could not penetrate the green hell. Enter Colonel Percy Fawcett, who would hack for miles through the tangle of wet leaves, often alone and battling fever, hostile tribes, and starvation. For decades, he searched for a long-abandoned jungle metropolis described by the early conquistadors – a city he dubbed “Z.” Perhaps it was insanity that drove him. Perhaps it was simple British resolve. In any case, no man can defy the heavens for long.
What made The Lost City of Z such a joy to read was that we, too, became obsessed with finding the highways and temples of an entire civilization, now lost in the impenetrable jungle. Could the early Spanish accounts have been myth? Or had they indeed visited an advanced city state long since swallowed up nature? And what of Fawcett himself? He seemed so impervious to the jungle’s horrors (described in generous, titillating detail by Grann) that we struggled to believe he could have died there – perhaps he ran away to the North Pole to live with Amelia Earhart and Elvis. Whatever his fate, it was inextricably entwined with that of Z, and the twin mysteries has us turning page after page, like hopeless gamblers, ever hopeful that our next turn might yield the prize.
Too bad little of that excitement remains in the movie. Written and directed by James Gray, the film version opts for a bland biopic of Fawcett (Charlie Hunnam) papered over with the stylistic trappings of a Werner Herzog movie – which is to say that it’s a perfectly well directed movie, with a lot of atmosphere, set pieces worthy of Fitzcarraldo, great cinematography, and fantastic performance by Robert Pattinson (the first of many more to come we hope)…all set a script that fails more or less completely to ensnare us in the story.
First, the jungle is relegated from the main villain to a supporting role – we get one snake, a few angry natives (before tensions are diffused by a rather corny “we come in peace” routine), and a disease or two which kill off side characters no one cared about anyway. In fact, for a story set in the Amazon, it probably spends about a half-hour there.
What, then, fills the remaining hour and fifty minutes?
This is where the film takes a turn from the palatable to the outright eye-rollingly boorish – it develops a conscience. And a preening liberal one at that. It begins to engage in what the Internet community might call “virtue signaling” – i.e. professing loudly for all to hear that you care very deeply about social issues or, as us Episcopalians might say, “making a scene.”
Instead of giving us credible character arc that serves to explain how Fawcett (whom Hunnam and Grey portray as fairly straight white action hero) suddenly goes from soldier to discoverer of lost cities, the film drubs us with awkwardly delivered dialogues and diatribes about women’s lib, equality, colonialism. At one point, the narrative becomes so confused with what it’s trying accomplish that it briefly stumbles into World War I for no reason at all.
For all its supposed importance to the plot, the appeal of Z remains as nebulous to us as its location does to Fawcett. The latter, we are told, is a man with something to prove. But Hunnam’s demeanor doesn’t quite match the description. His walk retains too much of its insouciant swagger from Sons of Anarchy. There is no wildfire in his eye. He should be a Willem Defoe; instead we get a Chris Evans. Thus, when he stands in front of the Royal Geological Society pounding his firsts and demanding “Z” be found, we do not believe a word of it. And why did he name it Z anyway? And why does he suddenly care about archeology? And why, five minutes later, is he suddenly insisting he believes in the equality of the sexes? What does that have to do with anything? What made Fawcett interesting was his all-consuming, brutalizing fight against the jungle in pursuit of something mysterious and fantastical place – much like the lost city itself, there is scant trace of that remaining here.