SPOILERS It will not appeal to Spielberg's fans:in a nutshell it's an adult adventure movie,which rather recalls John Huston and even Von Stroheim's "greed".
Three years before,Hathaway had made "garden of evil" a western which dealt with almost the same subject;in spite of the general opinion,I think that "legend of the lost" surpasses the former work.
The audience must be disturbed by the slow pace and by the fact that there are only three characters .Like in "garden of evil" ,danger does not come from the outside ,it's already here ,in man's heart.And what's really puzzling is the psychological evolution of these characters:Paul is the most interesting;it's very unusual that the "good " hero,with whom we side during the first half of the movie,should turn into the "villain".
Hathaway makes a wonderful use of the location ,as he did some years before with his masterpiece "Niagara" :he works wonders with the infinite desert and its mirages and the old lost Roman city.The part in these ruins climaxes the movie:as Dita says ,there are ghosts in this place ,and some ghost do not come from a remote time.The discovery by the raiders of the three skeletons is a good example of "the plot repeats itself" ,a trick that many directors have tackled (see for instance Branagh's "dead again" ,1991):Joe 's sinister "archeology" -trying to piece together the drama which happened some twenty years before- will trigger Paul's lunacy:little by little,he who was a virtuous man will become more and more threatening.He who was raised on Bible ,will adorn Dita with jewels,like a pagan idol.
I say it again,Spielberg's aficionados won't be satisfied:action takes a back seat to psychology and to the splendor of the settings.But it will reward people who like offbeat works.Too bad Hathaway should have ruled out any ambiguity of his ending;had he allowed some doubt,we would have had a Dino Buzzati (Il deserto dei tartari) style conclusion.
Three years before,Hathaway had made "garden of evil" a western which dealt with almost the same subject;in spite of the general opinion,I think that "legend of the lost" surpasses the former work.
The audience must be disturbed by the slow pace and by the fact that there are only three characters .Like in "garden of evil" ,danger does not come from the outside ,it's already here ,in man's heart.And what's really puzzling is the psychological evolution of these characters:Paul is the most interesting;it's very unusual that the "good " hero,with whom we side during the first half of the movie,should turn into the "villain".
Hathaway makes a wonderful use of the location ,as he did some years before with his masterpiece "Niagara" :he works wonders with the infinite desert and its mirages and the old lost Roman city.The part in these ruins climaxes the movie:as Dita says ,there are ghosts in this place ,and some ghost do not come from a remote time.The discovery by the raiders of the three skeletons is a good example of "the plot repeats itself" ,a trick that many directors have tackled (see for instance Branagh's "dead again" ,1991):Joe 's sinister "archeology" -trying to piece together the drama which happened some twenty years before- will trigger Paul's lunacy:little by little,he who was a virtuous man will become more and more threatening.He who was raised on Bible ,will adorn Dita with jewels,like a pagan idol.
I say it again,Spielberg's aficionados won't be satisfied:action takes a back seat to psychology and to the splendor of the settings.But it will reward people who like offbeat works.Too bad Hathaway should have ruled out any ambiguity of his ending;had he allowed some doubt,we would have had a Dino Buzzati (Il deserto dei tartari) style conclusion.