Product Description

From the director of Hope & Glory comes a "wildly ambitious parable [that] transports us to a singularly imaginative realm" (Boxoffice). The Emerald Forest is "an exotic and erotic daymare replete with one lushly enrapturing scene after another" (Daily News)! For ten years, engineer Bill Markham (Powers Boothe) has searched tirelessly for his son Tommy who disappeared from the edge of the Brazilian rainforest. Miraculously, he finds the boy living among the reclusive Amazon tribe who adopted him. And that's when Bill's adventure truly begins. For his son (Charley Boorman) is now a grown tribesman who moves skillfully through this beautiful-but-dangerous terrain, fearful only of those who would exploit it. And as Bill attempts to "rescue" him from the savagery of the untamed jungle, Tommy challenges Bill's idea of true civilization and his notions about who needs rescuing.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5386 in DVD
• Released on: 2001-02-06
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: Spanish, French
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 114 minutes

Amazon.com
John Boorman's 1985 South American epic never quite gets all of its gears working simultaneously, but it remains an often startling work with an extraordinary performance by the director's own son, Charley Boorman. Powers Boothe plays an American engineer working on a dam project in Brazil. When his young son is seemingly absorbed one day into the dense perils and beauty of the Amazon rain forest, Boothe's character goes on a protracted, 10-year search for him. In the interim, Boorman puts his full storytelling powers to work by characteristically exploring the arcane rhythms and dangers of an indigenous world hidden from ordinary view. Specifically, Boorman leads us into the life of a forest tribe who have assimilated the missing child and who will ultimately send him back with the opposite of his father's pro-development sensibility. The movie is gorgeous to behold, and it's great fun watching Boorman find ever-novel ways of making the same film again and again. But the environmental message and the emotion of the core relationship get in each other's way a bit, preventing the film from uniting on every front. Still, this is a must for Boorman fans. --Tom Keogh

Customer Reviews

This is my favorite movie of all time
The beauty and power of the rainforest juxtaposed to the beauty and power of "civilization," on of my favorite themes. Who is the true savage? Powers Boothe plays a construction engineer building a dam in the rainforest that is increasingly changing the structure of the most valuable real estate on earth. Not only is it effecting the plants and animals, creating desert where there was once rich vegetation, but it is affecting the indigenous tribes in horrendous ways. Charley Boorman plays the beautiful young son who is kidnapped by the leader of the "Invisible People." His father and mother (played by the beautiful Meg Foster) spent the next ten years searching for the boy as he is being raised in tribal customs.

Meanwhile, as the living space for the tribes grows increasingly smaller, the "Invisible People," who are basically good hearted, land loving indigenous people who keep to themselves and only want to survive, are increasingly threatened by the "Fierce People," a carnivorous, cannibalistic tribe who are desperately seeking space for themselves.

We watch Tomme grow up, learn from his new "father" who loves him dearly and was perhaps initially attracted to the tyke's golden blond hair and his own need for a son. We watch Tomme go through a ritual rite of passage that sends him on a dangerous quest for the special green rock that allows what are now his people to become "Invisible." It is in this quest that Tomme and his father cross paths again, and a lesson is learned about the cost of the damage civilization has brought to what is truly a beautiful and rich country better off left alone.

For a long time I couldn't find this movie anywhere. Not even at amazon.com. I cherish the copy I did finally find. I am thrilled to see that it is now available on DVD, but would like to see a DVD created with educational "special features" about the rain forest and the fight to preserve it. That's really what this movie is all about. See it now, before it gets away again.

So . . . what did he say?
I have to give this film five stars for all the reasons that the other fans of this movie discuss. This commentary is on an unusual glitch that I discovered with the DVD. I'm referring to the MGM "Contemporary Classics" edition (in case there's another version out there).

I was surprised to discover that, when the native people were speaking, some of the subtitling was left off. Moments of indigenous dialogue were left un-subtitled in the VHS version (moments when a character appeared to be saying something like "Move" or "Hey, look."). However, with the DVD, there was one scene where a bit of dialogue that was significant to the development of the plot went unsubtited, and we were all left in the dark. It happened in only one significant scene, that I noticed, and eventually it was apparent what the character had said, but it was still frustrating and strange.

However, I still recommend that you get the DVD. When comparing scenes between the DVD and my old VHS copy (in order to see what had been said during the previously mentioned scene), I discovered that the old pan and scan version occasionally cut out almost 50% of the screen! With a film this beautiful, this is intolerable!

If you have this on VHS and are considering upgrading to DVD, I recommend that you do so - the visual pay-off is great! But keep your hands on the old VHS copy, unless you know the dialogue from memory.

"When You Hear The Toucan, Danger Is Near" ~ A Termite Child From The Dead World
Bill Markham (Powers Boothe), an American engineer supervising a development project in the Amazon Rainforest has his young son Tomme (Charley Boorman) abducted by an elusive Indian tribe known as "The Invisible People." Bill spends the next ten years combing the jungles trying to find Tomme and bring him home.

When they are finally reunited Tomme is now a young man and the adopted son of the tribal chief and shaman (Ruy Polanah). He has also chosen a wife and is about to be married. And so the struggle begins, not only between father and son, but between two very foreign cultures in search of mutual understanding and acceptance.

While the two fathers and son work through the implications of their chance meeting danger looms on the horizon. A neighboring tribe of cannibals known as "The Fierce People" will soon attack. The ensuing confrontation will force Bill to join in the battle in an effort to defeat a mutual enemy.

Everything about this film is first rate. Acting (Powers Boothe, Charley Boorman and Ruy Polanah), directing (John Boorman), cinematography, and screenplay. It even has an important message to get across (saving the Rainforest) and does so without preaching to the audience or jeopardizing the integrity of the story.

It has been some twenty years since the release of this film, yet it still remains to be relatively unknown by a vast majority of movie watchers. Why it hasn't received more attention by now is a total mystery to me. This is one of the true undiscovered gems of cinema that everyone should experience. Definitely one of my all-time top ten films!