The Emerald Forest

[redpaintednavi]

Is there someone who remembers the movie The Emerald Forest? It was made in the year 1985 by John Boorman. It is about a little boy who was taken and adopted by an indigenous people in the Amazon. In the film we follow the father looking for his son. We also follow how the boy, Tomme (Tommy) lives among his new people.
Also we see how the modern ciilization destroy the rainforest and how the culture and life of the indigenous peoples are threatened by destruction and how the arrival of modern civilisation sets in motion a spiral of violence. We see how native girls are abducted to become sex slaves among the civilized and how Tomme and his friends go out on a daring rescue mission to save them.
We see the reunion of father and son and how the father sides with the natives in their struggle for survival.

Emerald forest is a movie that like Avatar immerses you and makes you feel that you are actually there together with the protagonists. It contrasts the wondeful beauty of the rainforest and its people against the ugliness of the modern capitalist civilisation, with its environmental destruction and its moral decay.

We really get to like the young boy Tomme and his lovely girl Kachiri. Kachiri is really a symbol of natural beauty and naked innocense.

Emerald forest is said to be one of the many movies that inspired Cameron when he made Avatar. And it has many resemblances, especially in how it contrasts the natural life of the indigenous people against the destructive forces of civilisation. Also it shows a foreigner coming into a native culture and making this culture his own.


Tomme and Kachiri

[Human No More]

Never seen it... might have to some time

[redpaintednavi]

It is interesting and gratifying that Dira Paes who plays Kachiri, the heroes girlfriend, has become commited in the struggle to save the Xingu river and its indigenous peoples from destruction. In the Brazilian version of a video about the threat against the river she reads the same text as Sigorney Weaver does in the Engslih version.

YouTube - Defendendo os Rios da Amazônia - Parte 1

YouTube - Defending the Rivers of the Amazon, with Sigourney Weaver

[Susano'o]

I highly recommend this movie. It contains a lot of similarities to Avatar.

Spoiler:  

- Uniltaron,
- Hunt festival,
- grubbing rainforest and attack on the bulldozers,
- quotes on beginning and end the movie,
- Neytiri's arrow.

[redpaintednavi]

Yes, indeed.

As an interesting little detail one can note that the female protagonists in both films have names that ends on iri, Kachiri and Neytiri.

[ISV Venture Star]

One of many movies and books from which Avatar has heritage. **** all those ignorant people who think that Dances with Wolves invented this kind of story.

[Ashen Key]

Originally Posted by ISV Venture Star

One of many movies and books from which Avatar has heritage. **** all those ignorant people who think that Dances with Wolves invented this kind of story.

You do have to admit that Dances with Wolves is pretty famous, though.

[ISV Venture Star]

Sure. Have you seen 'A Man called Horse' (1970)? Also a good film.

[ahoragi]

I just rented this from netflix. Although the entire movie ain't captioned (i need captioning cuz im deaf) some of it was and I got the idea of what was happening. Very good movie and gave me goose bumps at times. I really wish we could live lives like that.

I do agree it's very similar to Avatar. The hunt, finding your spirit animal, being torn to choose the tribe or the white people, the destruction of their home, etc.

[redpaintednavi]

Some more pictures from Emerald forest.

The beautiful Kachiri


Sweet girls from the Emerald Forest


The chief with adornments


Tomme and Kachiri

[redpaintednavi]

Here is the movie:

Watch Videos Online | The Emerald Forest (1985, John Boorman) | Veoh.com

[ahoragi]

I miss that movie. Despite it being old, i loved it.

[redpaintednavi]

More about the film and about the books and posters, the language and other things corresponding with the film.

Emerald Forest: Information and Pics on the Classic Movie by John Boorman

It is interesting what director John Boorman said when he returned to England after shooting the film in the rain forest:

"I looked at my fellow countrymen and felt alien. There is no grace nor dignity in these people, no harmony in their dress, no art in their play. Here is a tribe gone sadly wrong, mutated. Worst of all, they seem to have lost the knowledge of what they have lost."

It is similar feelings that one feels after having seen Emerald Forest, or Avatar.

[Moco Loco]

I think I actually saw this a long time ago, the characters look familiar but I barely remember what happened.

[auroraglacialis]

I think I saw this film when it came to TV some years after it was in the theatres. I loved it back then and it sucked me in very much the same way that Avatar more recently. I must have been 14 or so at that time. I dreamt for months about running away into a rainforest or joining a tribe or finding some interested people and create a new tribe in some remote place. It indeed has so many similarities to Avatar... of course no bioluminescent plants, flying Ikran or several moons in the sky...