In the beginning we're introduced to a self proclaimed "rainbow chaser" who after making a small fortune fritters it away on phantom gold mines in SE Asia. Very quickly we discover that rather than deal with his personal life and family he'd rather chase the next "big thing". Subsequently through him we meet two World War II vets, both who promise finding looted treasures they had separately hid away during the war before coming home. From there the movie shifts to the slow discovery and uncovering of misremembered and forgotten deeds of our past that may haunt us all our lives and to the grave.
The director filmed and edited over 250 hours of footage shot over 3 years and distilled it down to what we have here. Which at first comes across as a middle age man chasing after dreams of old men who are confused about their pasts and what they've done. To be even more meta one could say the director was chasing his own dream of film making via the treasure hunter. But as the end of the film approaches things solidify into something nearly transcendent.
While there are no real buried chests dug up, what we do find is that time changes everything. It changes us and the world around us. Time can strip away the sharpness of what we remember, and we will easily tint our memories to only remember the good and block out the bad. But the things we've done and choices we make can affect us all our lives until we step up and deal with them. And that might be the real treasure of this film.
The director filmed and edited over 250 hours of footage shot over 3 years and distilled it down to what we have here. Which at first comes across as a middle age man chasing after dreams of old men who are confused about their pasts and what they've done. To be even more meta one could say the director was chasing his own dream of film making via the treasure hunter. But as the end of the film approaches things solidify into something nearly transcendent.
While there are no real buried chests dug up, what we do find is that time changes everything. It changes us and the world around us. Time can strip away the sharpness of what we remember, and we will easily tint our memories to only remember the good and block out the bad. But the things we've done and choices we make can affect us all our lives until we step up and deal with them. And that might be the real treasure of this film.