Amazon

IN AN ACT OF MERCY KARI HAS TAKEN HIS wife's life and is now on the run with his daughters from Finland to Brazil. After much misfortune they're driving on the highway through the Amazonas, hoping to find better luck at the other side of the jungle. Then, gas and food supplies run out. They meet Dan, a pilot, who is dreaming of repairing an abandoned bulldozer in order to dig gold in a paradise-like village. He recruits Kari for the purpose. In the village Kari falls in love with the beautiful teacher Paola, who has a profound respect for the province and is appalled by the two men's destructive plan. After a plane crash, Kari is saved by an indian tribe and learns how to appreciate the nature he earlier was planning to destroy. Inspired by this new insight, Kari's sole desire is to return to Paola and his daughters. First, however, he has to take on the greatest challenge of his life: The Amazon.
Comment:
IN A FAMOUS TRAVELOGUE, BENEDICT ALLEN describes how the name Amazonas the first time he heard it evoked a steaming jungle, crowded by naked savages and headhunters who were going to eat each other up as soon as they got the chance. The most violent of them all were the female hunters - the amazons - who cut off their right breast in order to move freely with bow and arrows. Their victims were gold diggers on their way through the woods. That's how he saw it as a ten-year-old.
We can often imagine a geographical place even though we haven't been there. The picture, like in Allen's case, can be muddled by an unenlightened teacher. In spite of that, Allen was bold enough to travel to the Amazonas himself, and his readers, in turn, get a more accurate impression of life there. But, the question is, does the other Amazonas exist as well? One reminiscent of Allen's youthful fantasy? The Amazonas as metaphor. Africa no longer contains the heart of darkness. You have to search for it on the other side of the great water now ...
The jungle engages us in films like Herzog's Aguirre and Fitzcaralldo or in Boorman's The Emerald Forest. So it does in Mika Kaurismäki's Amazon. Mentioning metaphors or the heart of darkness might be altogether wrong, however. If you look at Boorman's and Kaurismäki's films, for example, ultimately another meaning can be found in the idea of the Amazonas: the dream of paradise on earth.
Someone asks the protagonist in Kaurismaki's film:
''Change money?'' But the answer is ''Change life!'' This captures the essence of Amazon. Like in Sunset Boulevard, the story is told by a dead man. ''Dead men tell no tales'' the saying goes, but the dead do talk to us through poetry, art and particularly in film. Change life! It sounds like the good old slogan from -68, encouraging us to transform our lives. This radical reevaluation is also referred to in Kaurismäki's film.
Amazon could be placed next to Brazil, Terry Gilliam's dystopic cyberpunk satire which not only refers back to the musical hit, but to Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, a city representing the future without a future, a modernist vision just as over-acted as The Jetsons. Maybe the future lies waiting there, in the parts of the rain-forest still alive? Western man's desire appears to be constant. Change moneyr No, change life! _
CLEMENS ALTGÅRD