I remember enjoying director John Boorman's unusual, Amazon-set action drama The Emerald Forest on VHS shortly after the film's original 1985 release. Lushly filmed in the rainforests of Brazil, this emotionally charged story of a father searching for son abducted by natives ten years prior was a risky, highly personal project for the director (who also produced). Kino-Lorber's Studio Classics Blu Ray edition of the film gives a new luster to this overlooked '80s flick, its verdant imagery complemented with solid performances by Powers Boothe and the director's son, Charley Boorman.

With its sympathetic portrait of Brazil's native population, The Emerald Forest counts as yet another cautionary tale against industrialization and humankind's encroachment on nature. The "Save the Earth" message put forth by Boorman and screenwriter Rospo Pallenberg winds up getting muddled, however (the movie fails at convincingly portraying the native lifestyle as any more attractive than civilization). In the end, what we're left with is a compelling, well-acted story in an exotic setting - at least in the first half. The Powers Boothe character, Bill Markham, is an American engineer sent to Brazil to oversee the completion of a hydro-electric dam. Having just relocated himself, his wife Jean (an underused Meg Foster), and two young children to the city, the family ventures to the construction site on the outskirts of the rainforest for a picnic. Exploring the wilderness on his own, Markham's seven year-old son, Tommy, becomes captivated by a group of primitive rainforest tribespeople intently studying him. On his way to tell his dad about the strangers, he gets kidnapped by the natives. Ten years later, Tommy has grown into a confident teen - rechristened Tommé and fully assimilated into the peaceful Invisible People tribe - while his father embarks on a journey into the uncharted regions of the rainforest to finally locate the boy.

In a weird instance of selective memory, I always imagined that The Emerald Forest was only about Markham's efforts to find Tommé, and that the film climaxed with him catching up with the boy and realizing the extent that the Invisible People have transformed his son. Little did I realize that this (excellent) scene occurs just halfway through the movie. The rest of the story deals with Markham attempting to return Tommé to civilization, Tommé's journey to locate the rare green stones that allow his fellow tribespeople to camouflage themselves, the Invisible Peoples' deadly encounters with a warlike neighboring tribe known as the Fierce People, and the results of the Fierce People being trained to use guns by an evil group of profiteers - who eventually kidnap the young women from the Invisible People to use as prostitutes. In an effort to rescue the native girls, Tommé makes an arduous trip into the city to get his father to help out. To fully immerse himself in the native culture, Markham undergoes the same rite of passage (involving ants with hallucinogenic stingers) his son experienced. It leaves him a changed man - and far more empathetic to the ways of the people his business is destroying.

Despite a routine, action-packed second half which often plays out like a tropical-set Miami Vice episode, The Emerald Forest still stands out as an intriguing, well-crafted effort. Unusually for a non-foreign film, much of the dialogue is spoken in native dialect with subtitles (this was a few decades before James Cameron did Avatar with mostly subtitled dialogue, mind you). Boothe and Charley Boorman do fairly well with both the dialect and the strenuous physical demands of their roles. The elder Boorman also excels with the portrayal of sympathetic, well-rounded (albeit somewhat Westernized) native characters such as Rui Polonah's dignified chief of the Invisible People and Dira Paes as the native woman whom Tommé has fallen for. The beautifully photographed early scenes of Tommé communing with the rainforest - and Markham's intense pursuit of his son through the thickets - form a striking contrast to the movie's strident, often preachy latter half. The rescue subplot and climax at Markham's dam site seemed tacked-on to appease audiences looking for more standard action fare, although the essential theme of a young man discovering the true nature of family - and the father yielding himself to that notion - has a timeless potency on its own.

The Blu Ray:

Video:

Kino-Lorber has used a handsome-looking, nearly pristine print for its Studio Classics Blu Ray edition of The Emerald Forest. While the letterboxed 2.35:1 image has a few instances of dirt and age, the movie's lush color and pleasantly grainy film stock come through well in this newly remastered transfer. The only noticeable defects I saw were in a few earlier dark scenes where the film grain was amplified and overly sharpened - otherwise, it sports a nice, lifelike picture.

Audio:

The soundtrack is supplied in a good DTS multichannel stereo mix. Given the movie's age, some degradation is present, but overall it's a pleasantly mixed affair which serves its function well. The dialogue and lush music scoring is strong throughout, with neither element overpowering each other. The movie's non-English spoken segments are done with optional (not burned-in) subtitles. No other subtitle or audio options are included on the disc.

Extras:

The sole extra is the film's Theatrical Trailer, a dirty looking yet enjoyable clip filled with the usual '80s preview clichés (Voice of God narration, dramatic music).

Final Thoughts:

Deliverance and Excalibur director John Boorman's 1985 pet project The Emerald Forest finally arrives on Blu Ray in a solid, mostly extra-free edition. Bogged down with an unnecessary, preachy rescue plot in its second half, this widescreen drama hasn't held up as well as I'd hoped. Still, the beautifully lensed central story of a father (Powers Boothe) tracking down his son (Charley Boorman) abducted by Brazilian natives has retained its primitive appeal. Recommended.

Matt Hinrichs is a designer, artist, film critic and jack-of-all-trades in Phoenix, Arizona. Since 2000, he has been blogging at Scrubbles.net. 4 Color Cowboy is his repository of Western-kitsch imagery, while other films he's experienced are logged at Letterboxd. He also welcomes friends on Twitter @4colorcowboy.