Tony Grist (poliphilo) wrote,
Tony Grist
poliphilo

Zed

The Lost City of Zed lost me at the point where Percy Fawcett was addressing a meeting of the Royal Geographical Society and said, "I've found evidence of a lost civilisation in the Amazon" and everyone went "Boo" and then someone in the audience went "But let's go look for it anyway" and everybody cheered- and I thought this is not like any public meeting I've ever attended.

When the movie ended I went online and found an article by someone who knows a lot about Amazonia and he said almost everything in the movie is wrong; that Percy Fawcett told tall stories and never discovered anything that hadn't been discovered before- and far from being a 21st century bleeding heart was an abrasive personality who shot Indians with his Mauser first and asked questions afterwards- or, more probably, didn't bother to ask questions at all.

I know nothing about Amazonia but I know a little about The Great War- and I saw in the Wikipedia article about him that Fawcett had been an artillery officer in 14-18- which would have meant he was positioned well behind the front lines- and that it was therefore highly unlikely that he ever gave his men a rousing speech about the true meaning of life before leading a bayonet charge over the top in a frontal assault on enemy positions...

And I was left wondering why anyone would make a movie based on real people and real events and yet choose to get all the facts wrong. I mean, what exactly is the point?
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