Sienna Miller puts in a stunning performance as Nina – fiercely intelligent and quick witted, she’s more than a match for her celebrated husband. The most captivating spark of human spirit comes not from Fawcett, but his wife. Through it all, Fawcett’s personal philosophy and calm demeanour remain broadly unchanged, whether he’s leading the charge on the Somme or returning later in his life for yet another journey up the Amazon, this time with his son Jack (played as a grown-up by Tom Holland) as his loyal companion. Instead, Fawcett becomes a constant as the story takes in 20 years of history – a period which takes in the Empire at its peak, the devastation of the First World War, and the beginning of the old order’s decline in the middle of the 1920s. Hunnam highlights the explorer’s bravery and resolve, yet he remains something of a remote, unknowable figure. In the middle of it all, Fawcett comes across as a bit of an enigma. With his thick beard, round glasses and ever-present hip flask, he’s an immediately likeable supporting character, and Pattinson puts in a generously restrained performance – indeed, it’s something of a surprise that Pattinson didn’t lobby for the leading role. The most striking regular among Fawcett’s group is Costin, played by a brilliantly understated Robert Pattinson. In this regard, we can’t help but feel more than a little sorry for Nina, who’s left in stuffy old England raising the kids while Fawcett dodges arrows, or the various other adventurers, guides and other odd characters who assist Fawcett down river and wind up with all kinds of ugly injuries and maladies. Empires, in short, are built on a sense of superiority and entitlement.įrom this fateful moment on, Fawcett makes it his life’s goal to prove the existence of his lost city of Z what begins as just another job – he’s initially despatched to the region to create maps – becomes an all-consuming passion.įawcett’s obsessive nature, and the impact it has on his longsuffering wife Nina (Sienna Miller) has perhaps unintended parallels with Peter Weir’s underrated 80s drama Mosquito Coast, in which Harrison Ford’s inventor drags his family halfway across Central America on a quixotic mission of his own. Fawcett’s assembled peers raucously laugh off the claims, since they would skewer their long-held belief that the jungles of South America are the homes of inferior ‘savages’, to use their own term. This much is revealed in the film’s pivotal scene where soldier and explorer Major Percy Fawcett (Charlie Hunnam) lays out evidence for a previously undiscovered Amazonian civilisation before an incredulous Royal Geological Society. Some may want to get back to those days of colonies and economic expansion, but it’s wise to remember they were also a period of arrogance, oppression and outright ignorance. Anyone harbouring a lingering shred of nostalgia for the British Empire should take a good look at The Lost City Of Z.
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