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One of my all time favorite "Jungle" movies.

I first heard about this movie when I was living down south and a friend of mine mentioned it to me. A local TV station at that time, late 1980s, was trying to have it blocked for some reason. I never did get to see it at that time. A year later, a girlfriend of mine at the time told me about the movie and how much she loved it, so I told her what had happened in that little town down south. She'd told me that was stupid the move was awesome and if I ever got the chance to see it. Two years later, back in New York, I came across the movie for sale in a video store and snatched it up thinking I had to see what all this was about.

I wasn't disappointed.

However, for a short while after viewing the movie the fist time around, I did keep an eye out for large snakes hanging out in trees whenever I went hiking or cannoning. . .

Lazaro, after loosing his father--look out for big snakes--and later his mother, lives alone in the jungle for a short while. The villagers down the river eventually come to call him the Dolphin Boy, because he's often seen swimming with dolphins and they even believe he can become one and swim away if in danger. Later Lazaro is caught by fisherman and taken to a church and that's when the story takes a twisting turn that I found very interesting and thoughtful. I did get a kick out of watching them try and give the Jungle Boy a hair cut or make him wear sneakers. And there is one scene where Lazaro wants to share a snack he caught with his new friend that I found both funny and touching.

For some reason this story touched something deep inside me and I've loved it ever since. Visually it was very pleasing with lush jungles and the contrasting open mine pits looking like gaping wounds in the Garden of Eden. The young actors (brothers) who play Lazaro are very convincing in their portrayal of a child of the rain forest, very well acted and believable, and as other's have pointed out, very stunning looking.

It'd be great if they made more movies like this one . . . But as someone has already mentioned, movies like this come along maybe once ever ten or so years.

Only the French could have made a movie like this, and it is a shame that movies like this will never be made again. . .

It was a bit strange and surreal and at the same time very bold and artistic. You really have to watch it at least twice to catch the point. Are they really aliens? Do they have a virus and need to live out their lives in plastic bubbles so as not to infect others? (I caught the fact that a virus is mentioned in a few parts in the movie) Do they have immune deficiently and have to live in a sterile environment? Or is the entire movie a metaphor for overprotective parents? As other's have pointed out there is nudity in the movie, however it is quite tame and not what most people would think when reading the reviews, and it was handled in such a way as to be both artistic, harmless, and to portray the innocence of the two--and in a way so that about a quarter of the way through the movie I stopped noticing it--and was more interested in what would happen to Tom and Lola.

The end of the movie did make me think, and I was both happy and a little sad for the both of them. I must say as a writer of Science Fiction and Fantasy I liked the movie and give credit to the film's creators, writers and actors for undertaking a very bold and interesting project.

As I said, this is a rare, interesting and visually imaginative movie, the likes of which we will probably never see again . . .