Oro : La Cité perdue

I frankly don't understand the bad reviews concerning this action adventure film. This is for me a very good, gritty, taut movie, with plenty of action and riveting scenes, good characters depiction and symphony. This is not light hearted but rather gloomy, and desperate. You still can compare this one to Carlos Saura's ELDORADO and Werner Herzog's AGUIRRE; you can compare but that's all, the two latest movies are a bit - or even more - better than this one. Let's be fair. Anyway, this movie is worth watching, definitely, especially if you are fond of Spanish adventures in Amazonia forest in lust for gold. There were not so many of them.

Cartoonish, but in a bad sense. 90% of the time the conquistadors wander around in the jungle carrying tons of steel, guns, armour, and all sorts of weapons... I wonder if they eat at all, because they don't carry food, or pots to cook, or stuff to sleep or spare cloths... At least Aguirre had porters to do the heavy lifting. The dialog sounds (I am a native Spanish speaker) like the mockery of a bad 1950's movie... The characters act like robots, doing things without a motive (this is probably a problem with the original script). The jungle looks like Madrid's botanic gardens. In summary, the producers should have deleted the files before embarrassing themselves.

The actors well,i'm not good at remembering them from other spanish movies,but they do a very good job.I enjoy the movie very much,10 stars from my point of view.

In the intro to 'Oro', the writer says of the protagonists:

"they were harsh, arrogant, cruel, often divided by quarrels... They killed without scruples and died without protest, in search of gold..."

The rest of the movie is a long, plodding death march illustrating the above points in one brutal incident after another. I was attracted to 'Oro' because of the involvement of Arturo Pérez-Reverte, author of the 'Alatriste' novels, and Agustín Díaz Yanes, the director and screenwriter of the movie version with Viggo Mortensen. As it turn outs though, the cast of 'Oro' is basically a bunch of minor characters from the Alatriste novels while the only thing it has in common with the Mortensen movie is the stabby, throat-slitting viciousness of the fight scenes. The artistry and athleticism of the swordsmen in 'Captain Alatriste' is nowhere to be seen.

I gave 'Oro' a five on the IMDb scale. It's worth seeing if you're really into the period or the creative people involved; if not, you probably want to give it a pass.

Do not ask for another " aguirre der Zorn Gottes" (1972),Werner Herzog's masterwork will probably remain unsurpassed as far the subject is concernd .

But it does not mean that "oro" is a dud ; it certainly has qualities :the first one is the absence of real hero : who are the villains? Who are the good guys ?We are spared the traditional love story between the Dona and a chivalrous member of the trek : the woman is coveted by everyone and her virtue is put to the test all along the saga (dig the line: "he won't console anyone now!");in this green hell, the real enemies are the members themselves ,much more than the Indians who are most of the time invisible or their compatriots hot on their heels ; all these men are beyond any moral :where is good? In the priest 's words ,a naive man who wants to evangelize "those natives in the Devil's clutches " ? In the way the soldiers choose to die (the garrote being infamous) ?

Most likely in the old man's wisdom:he chose to marry an Indian girl who gave him children and he's settled in a small village where he waits for death ,not caring anymore for this gold that makes men kill each other with God on their side ; one should note that gore is kept to relatively economical levels (the caimans ,the snake, the slittings)

The atmosphere is stifling and nightmarish ,but the script leaves a lot to be desired and the characters are nor developed enough.