The Emerald Forest

Title: The Emerald Forest

Director: John Boorman

Writer: Rospo Pallenberg

Year: 1985

Running time: 110 minutes

Unofficial webpage:  The Emerald Forest

Plot summary:

Bill Markham is an engineer who has moved to Brazil with his family to complete the construction of a large hydro-electric dam. The construction requires large areas of forest to be cleared, even more to be flooded. Its completion will bring more people to the areas who will clear the jungle for agriculture and living space.

Markham takes his family to the edge of the forest for a picnic to show them the jungle. It is then that an Indian from one of the indigenous tribes known as the Invisible People notices his son, Tommy, aged seven, has bright green eyes the colour of the forest. The tribesman decides that it is unfair to leave the child with these strange people, who, in his opinion, are destroying the world. He abducts the child. Markham pursues them, but his son is gone.

The story jumps ahead some ten years. The dam is nearing completion. Tommy, or Tommé as he is now called, has become part of the tribe that he lives with, adopting their language, culture and way of life. His father finds him but discovers that he is not the son he once had.

Tommé's tribe is later threatened by another, as well as by the near completion of the dam. Markham decides to help his son so that the way of life he has adopted is not destroyed.

Based on a true story.

The film was screened out of competition at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival.

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