[CRITICAL] THE LOST CITY OF Z

The Lost City of Z extends to the grounds of the cinema of James Gray, making him earn a extent crazy. Attention, great movie !

Unquestionably one of the directors of the most gifted of his generation, James Gray is unfortunately far too rare. Since Little Odessawas released in 1995 in us, his filmography boils down to five films. His sixth, THE LOST CITY OF Z, marks a new turn in his work. Already, with the link Two Lovers/The Immigrant, the director, 47-year-old had managed to develop the grounds of his cinema moving away from genre films to deal with the exercise of the melodrama frontally. Until then, intrigue, police were backdrops allowing him to address subjects that were more intimate (destiny, accept that you are who you want to be, the weight of the family environment and his social class), just go straight to exhibit on the big screen with autobiographical elements (we know, for example, that the couple of parents in Little Odessa is totally inspired by hers). As The Immigrant marked the arrival of the first leading female character in the filmography of James Gray, THE LOST CITY OF Z has also just bring a revival because for the first time his cinema is moving away from the lands of new york to dart the heart of the jungle. The approach acts as a small event, with the promise to see a film of adventures loose.In the indispensable book Interview with James Gray by Jordan Mintzer, the director of american stated, “I’m not interested at all the typical elements of genre films if they don’t serve a function more high, which embodies a truth most high“, which provides from the outset a key to a better understanding of his new feature film. THE LOST CITY OF Z takes on the trappings of an adventure story to better get closer to all the obsessions of the film gray-ien – men trapped by their condition and their fate, who struggle for hope to exist. It has always been a question of imprisonment since Little Odessa. Every attempt to extirpate was constantly a failure, the power of a quasi-divine back to their defined place, by destroying them from the inside at the same time. The colonel Fawcett (Charlie Hunnam), in search of recognition from his peers, embarks on an expedition to clear his name once sullied by the actions of her father. We see from the implementation of the plot the modus operandi dear to Gray, where the children undergo the weight of the imposing figure and patriarchal in spite of themselves. Real movie about the descent, THE LOST CITY OF Z inhibits the tragic bitter of the earlier works of James Gray to open within his filmography, a gate output non-devoid of gravity and yet full of a sweet serenity.

” The Lost City of Z belongs to the majestic breed of the great films haunted”

Let us remember the final shot of The Immigrant, where Ewa managed to pull himself out of his condition in order to oscillate physically towards a future more serene. The exit door, here, is mental belief. Since the society and its institutions may not allow Fawcett to achieve a fullness of existence, he decides to trace his own route away from the others, but close to its beliefs. The city of Z does it exist ? It is Impossible to know. And the film engages multiple attempts to deliver a response without leading to any practical result. The canvas base is a decoy used with malice by James Gray. It is believed a long time that the movie is going to disappoint us in his absence of drift, plating just obsessions-known in a genre untapped. The program seems too clean, too consistent with the expectations of the building’s gray-ien. The last act makes the film of more substance, starting a second pedigree, this time between Fawcett and his son. What is nice is that the film puts in scene the break between his two characters in a first time, creating illusoirement a double destructive effect – Fawcett in conflict with his father, becomes in his turn with his own son, inevitably. Then, for the first time in six movies, a father and his offspring are able to walk in a common sense. This is a revival of which we are witnesses, a mutation of a logical thematic and story worked ever since. James Gray is an author, building brick by brick a work total THE LOST CITY OF Z acts as a major turning point.“The goal is not just the goal. But the path that leads there.” said the wise Lao Tzu. This expression is a perfect translation of the quest of Fawcett, where the geographical and political become obsolete in the face of the power of its impulses from the inside. Each new trip to the green hell is a way of asserting its desire to be. As attested by the prodigious light of Darius Khondji, the forest is a place where the obsessions, personal well, as if the arrangement of the trees formed a screen on which to project questions of metaphysics. The purpose is absolutely not to reach the mysterious city, but rather, what one takes out of the journey to the deeper self. In this sense, the last expedition duo is a shocking appeasement in spite of the scope of tragic events and bringing in new and exciting ways a mystical dimension in the work of James Gray. Far blocks new york, his film is slick a phantasmagoria ever seen. The men at their loss, no matter what happens their dreams will because of them.

Then there remain the women. Sienna Miller embodies a bride left at the dock (a role similar to the one she had in American Sniper), required to undergo the back-and-forth of the male figure. Relegated long in the second plan, the final plan offers a dignified entrance door into a world of which it was banned. The beautiful gesture of Gray at this moment is not to make the woman a left-to-account (which was often the case in the past), but to include it in a process of mental impairment initiated by her husband, grippy in turn to a mechanical Faith filter with the madness. A Faith that is close to that of Gray to a cinema classic, elegant and subtle, made with a plumb master, in peace. The film breaks with conventions, modes and specifications inherent to the genre. To each plan, the viewer has the impression satisfactory attendance at a cinema with a capital C. The one that we are not doing that anymore. Timeless more than anachronistic, THE LOST CITY OF Z belongs to the majestic breed of the great films haunted.

Maxime Bedini

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