The Emerald Forest (1985)

Title: The Emerald Forest (1985)

Director: John Boorman

Cast: Powers Boothe, Charlie Boorman, Meg Foster

Review:

Some real life stories are so outlandish that they simply beg to be made into a film. John Boorman’s The Emerald Forest is a film based on the real life events of a father who worked as a lumberjack in the forests of Brazil. He was with his family in the forest when they were attacked by a group of natives and their 10 year old son Ezequiel was taken from them by the natives. The father spent ten whole years looking for his son deep in the Brazilian jungle, going to depths where not many people dare venture; he went around asking about tribes that lived in the nearby area. His search continued until finally, after ten years of searching he found him. Ezequiel was now 21 years old, and had been raised by the natives as one of their own! Would his son want to return to the modern world? Or would he stay with the tribe that raised him for the past ten years? When confronted with these questions Ezequiel answered: “I will not leave my people”.

John Boorman’s film was based on this article, and though its not 100% accurate to it, it has a lot of it in the film. It’s still a story about a boy that gets kidnapped by aborigines in the Amazonian jungle, but it has an added eco friendly message attached to it. To the films credit this added element gels perfectly with the story so I’m not complaining. The big changes made to the original story involve Power’s Boothe’s character. Boothe plays the father who looses his son to the aborigines; the change is that instead of him being a lumberjack, in the film he is in charge of the construction of a gigantic damn that will enable a more effective destruction of the rain forest, in this way making room for the proverbial “progress”. Since his son ends living in the forest that he is helping to destroy, a conundrum is created. How can he help destroy the forest that has become his sons’ home?

This is a really interesting concept, and its one that has been played with before, thing is that this time it was based on real life events. Films like A Man Called Horse (1970) presented us with the premise of an English aristocrat who gets captured by Indians. He lives amongst them for various years and learns to understand and accept their life styles and traditions, going through many of their rites of passages until he actually becomes one of them. And it’s a theme that’s been played with many years after The Emerald Forest was released in films like Dances with Wolves (1990), The Last Samurai (2003) and most recently Avatar (2010). What this type of film does is, it takes the modern man, the one always looking for progress and ‘civilization’ and puts him in the natives/aborigines shoes. It lets the modern man see what it is to be one of them, lets him see what he is so voraciously trying to destroy. By the end of the movie, the “modern man” sees the beauty of the aborigine’s lifestyle; he sees their connection with nature and the simplicity of their lives. Only by living with them can the modern man truly understand them. By the end of the film, the once modern man is now a changed man, having practically transformed into one of them. These type of films presents us with the idea of sympathy, or putting ourselves in the shoes of another to try and understand them.

The Emerald Forest has a bit of a twist to that formula because it places the modern mans son in that situation; the modern man in this film being Powers Boothe’s character, Bill Markham. His mission is to go and get his son back. Question is: after all these years, will his son still recognize him as his father? Has too much time passed by?

Like many of these films, one of the main themes is the modern lifestyle with its streets and buildings and cars vs. a simpler lifestyle that’s more in connection with nature. The tribe that abducts the child is called “The Invisible People” because they live so deep in the forest that no one knows that they even live there. But civilization is catching up to them and soon one of them realizes that the ‘edge of the world’ (where the forest ends and the modern world begins) is getting closer every time. There is one sequence that demonstrates the love that The Invisible People have for nature and freedom. It’s when a group of their women is kidnapped and turned into whores in the real world. When they are rescued, the first thing they do is take of all their clothes and return naked into the forest. Such a symbolic moment! These Indians are so in touch with nature and so free, that even clothes become constrictive! When we get to know The Invisible People and their ways, we get to wish that the modern world and their machines never get to them. They are a beautiful and simple society that loves to enjoy the pleasures of nature and community. They practice their own religion, and their own traditions. They also love to take their peyote! The peyote trips make it possible for the film to play with surreal imagery and dream sequences where the characters connect with their spirit animals.

It’s interesting to not that the kid who gets snatched away by the aborigines is played by Charlie Boorman, director John Boorman’s own son. It felt to me as I watched this movie that by casting his own son in the role of Tommy (or Tomme as he is later known to the tribe) Boorman was putting his own son through a rite of passage as well. In the film, Tommy is raised by The Invisible People to the point where he becomes one of them. And at a certain point he has to go through these rites of passage so he can become a man. The point being that if he manages to survive that ordeal, he will then become a man. Boorman’s son was in his late teens while making this film, so maybe Boorman cast his own son as a cinematic rite of passage. In real life, Boorman was seeing his son turn into a man, so he cast him in a film where the same thing happens to the character. Filmmakers often reflect their own life experiences in the films they make; it wouldn’t surprise me if that’s what Boorman was going for with The Emerald Forest. Not a bad choice since Charlie Boorman pretty much nails the complex role. A role that involved talking in the tribes language for the whole duration of the film.

This film won awards for best cinematography, and I can’t argue there, the film is beautiful to look at. The Invisible People wear very little clothes, but on special occasions they wear lots of colorful bird feathers that make for some very colorful visuals. The shots of the forest and the Amazonian landscape are amazing, especially because a large part of the film was really shot in the amazon, giving the film a bit of a Herzogian feel to it. My thanks go out to John Boorman who chose the most beautiful actresses to play the tribes females, who I might add are half naked for most of the film. So what we got here ladies and gentlemen is a very eco friendly film that was beautifully shot and acted. It has some very heartfelt moments in it. Many people hold this one close to their hearts because it’s both visually beautiful and has a great message against the destruction of the Amazonian forest which gets smaller by the day. I remember having seen The Emerald Forest as a kid and loving it, and now, many years after I originally saw it in 1985 I revisited it and loved it even more. Highly recommended.

Rating: 5 out of 5