macpherr Review of The Emerald Forest

The Emerald Forest (1985)

It is a bitter sweet story about a father who could never make his son happier then he already had become.

[7/10 · 3 April 1999]

Bill Markham, Powers Boothe (U-Turn, Nixon) is an engineer who moved to Brazil to develop a water dam in the Amazon Jungle. After a day in the woods on a picnic with his family, his son Tommy, innocently started watching ants and walked into the jungle. The "Invisible People," native Brazilian Indians that colored their faces so well that it blended with the trees and the habitat in general, took Tommy with them. The son just disappeared in the jungle. After a search the parents could not find the boy. Tommy grows up raised by the Indians and adjusts to their culture and customs and is called Tomme. Tomme is a happy native now. There is a book about the making of Emerald Forest, an international endeavor. The book tells about the difficulties in making a movie in the Amazon jungle, because of the environmentalists, and the bureaucracy. The director, John Boorman (Hell in the Pacific) was determined that his son, Charley Boorman (Hope and Glory), would not play Tomme, but he could not find anyone else to play Tomme and his son ends up with the part. The movie gives a lot of insight in the native Brazilian Indians. Tomme dreams about his father Bill Markham. When Tomme is a young adult, about to be married to young native, he runs into his father, who is still searching for him. This is a very poignant and moving moment in this movie. Tomme recognizes him and trusts him because he is the "man in his dreams" whom he calls Dada. Markham wants his son to go back to the white man's "Civilization," but Tomme is now a native and no longer fits in that civilization, no matter how civilized it is. Tomme goes visiting the apartment complex where the parents lived when another tribe armed by white men stole his tribe's women. He had started remembering things. He sees the place where he lived during a trace in which he becomes his guardian spirit, a Harpy eagle. Instead of taking the elevator, he climbs to the top floor balcony on the outside of the building! He had become one of the best warriors in the tribe, but the other tribe has guns. When Tomme goes into the "white man civilization," there is evil: drinkers, rape, abuse to the native Indians, and all the unfairness that is common to the natives around the world. Tomme lived in a very innocent environment where the natives lived as any society lives. Tomme is happy there. It is absolutely impossible to bring him out from the culture he now knows. Tomme is married to a beautiful native and is happy! The father now realizes what civilization is doing to the Amazon forest and finally destroys the dam that threatened the life of the natives. Now he had a reason: the happiness of his own son depends on it. The father is now against the development that he was hired to accomplish. The cinematography is beautiful. The natives to our surprise were actors. Boorman refused to use natives in the movie for fear of corrupting them. The actors did such a great job that we thought they were real natives. There are beautiful moments of tenderness between the natives and Tomme. It is a bitter sweet story because Markham could never make his son happier than he already was, and lost forever chance of knowing his son and making him happy. My favorite scenes: the son in the water fall discovering his own sexuality with a group of female natives, where a son and father meet, the dances of the natives. There was a lot of work involved in this movie.