The terrain of the documentary genre has gradually flattened so that its parts are sometimes indistinguishable. Viewers are dealt an aesthetic continuum that seems increasingly fluid, and the gap between Oscar’s winner and good YouTube content has shrunk. Audiences are seeing documentary material in truncated form, cut up across TikTok, Instagram reels, YouTube shorts. A.I.-generated info-dumps on special interests, from Egyptology to cryptids, are using variations of the same aesthetic forms. An “expert” voiceover accompanying generic “B-roll” footage has the same effect as a “Subway Surfers” lecture, in which academic information is conveyed while the viewer’s eyes are distracted by gameplay from the popular mobile game. The “talking head” interview, having been endlessly repeated, is endlessly memeable. From Ancient Aliens to Vince McMahan, the technique has solidified its function, but lost its meaning.
Through its own success, the form has transformed itself into nothing more than a way of acquiring information. The documentary genre has boomed — has perhaps never been so culturally relevant — in part because it has implicitly accepted this new role. The contemporary documentary, at its worst, is not much more than background noise. A vehicle for latent information. Non-fiction filmmakers have always been in the business of commodifying information, and never before in human history has there been this much information to commodify. The education channels — History, Discover, National Geographic — have exploded onto streamers. Netflix continues pouring resources into true crime. Meanwhile, independent creators armed with prosumer equipment and a bit of savvy can produce content of arguably comparable quality, if not better quality, if they scoop an engaging story.
Enter Jimmy Chin. Mountain climber, extreme skier, photographer. Chin was the first person to ski down from the top of Mount Everest, and along with two other climbers, the first to ascend the “Shark’s Fin” peak of Meru. This latter exploit was captured on video and rendered into the thrilling documentary Meru, which Chin directed alongside his then wife (and still current creative partner), Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi. Meru is raw, visceral, and extremely dangerous. The stakes of high-level alpine climbing are literally life or death, and Meru makes this very clear. Much of the camerawork is in the moment, the most extreme version of handheld videography, as Chin was doing the climbing himself. Even the filmmaking was life or death.
Meru put Chin and Vasarhelyi on the map. It wasn’t just a thrill-seeking action doc, but blended tense external dangers with ripe internal conflicts. It was a brilliant balance of seemingly impossible footage that placed us right in the heat of the moment, and genuine emotional crisis developing through earnest, “talking head” commentary. The duo had struck on an unpretentious formula, one perfectly suited for Chin’s chosen obsession. A self-proclaimed “dirtbag” climber, now turned successful documentary filmmaker, Jimmy Chin was the obvious candidate to chronicle his friend Alex Honnold’s insane attempt at free-soloing El Capitan in Yosemite. 3,000 feet of sheer rock face without any ropes or safety gear was the goal, and Free Solo turned the knobs up to eleven. Though strikingly similar to Meru, its narrative is far simpler, and more terrifying. Its protagonist, Honnold, is shockingly matter-of-fact regarding his own potential death, and the filmmakers do everything within their power to communicate his intensity to the audience. By its climax, Free Solo elicits from the audience the audible fight-or-flight response of the most effective horror movies and thrillers. With a remarkable subject and captivating craft, it should be no surprise that Free Solo became one of the highest-earning documentaries of all time and won Best Documentary Feature at the 2018 Academy Awards.
Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi have made a string of similar documentaries since Free Solo, the most exciting of which is The Rescue, about the Tham Luong Cave rescue, a daring episode later dramatized in Ron Howard’s Thirteen Lives. The pair have also forayed into dramatized recreation, with Nyad, in 2023, for which Annette Bening and Jodie Foster received accolades. Yet they’ve also settled into an easy routine. They have a niche, and a market, especially on streaming services. Other than Nyad, none of Chin and Vasarhelyi’s films since Free Solo have garnered significant theatrical attention. Return to Space, about Elon Musk and Space X, or Endurance, which attempts to reanimate the doomed expedition of Ernest Shackleton, both lack a dramatic substance that might elevate them. The duo’s house style has ossified into information-mongering.
Lost in the Jungle is bound for a similar fate. Based on an incredible true story of four young siblings surviving 40 days in the Colombian Amazon, the film attempts to dramatize the rescue effort, but with limited resources. The filmmakers did have access to the children, but by the very nature of recreation, the film never fully situates us within their plight. In fact, the stakes are kept oddly vague. We learn of their malnutrition, and fear the “Narco” gangs that could be patrolling the forest, but the days seem to tick by easily as we watch. The choice was made to depict the children with squiggly digital line animation, which is far from effective, with the technique becoming almost disorienting at times. It adds a level of fairytale-like fantasy that is welcome, in a way, but totally diminishes the physicality of the ordeal. We feel distanced from the children.
For much of the film, we are following a platoon of the Colombian Special Forces who, tasked with searching for the children across a nearly 400-square kilometer patch of dense forest, are running in parallel to an Indigenous search party, which includes members of the children’s family and a local shaman. These two forces cross, and meet, and the conflict between them delivers the most interesting part of the film. The commandos admit that they don’t trust the Indigenous searchers because, as they claim, Indigenous villages are often infiltrated by Narco guerillas. At the same time, the Indigenous party, including their illustrious shaman, confess that they don’t want to work with the military. They rightly feel abandoned by the Colombian state, and cite the horrors of the colonial rubber trade. The essence of this story is cooperation, and restitution; can these opposing sides work together to rescue four innocent children, and in doing so, find a new path forward?
Lost in the Jungle swivels between reenactment of this conflicted search party, talking head interviews with the most relevant subjects, and plain shots of the jungle, into which the children are animated. In stark contrast to films like Free Solo or Meru, the visual landscape of Lost in the Jungle is severely lacking. There’s little variety and often very little movement; only enough to catch our eyes while we listen, eager for more information. The story is told competently, and as much of it is direct, impassioned storytelling from the people involved, it has inherent value. Still, its style feels tired — tried and true, but tired. The filmmakers offer nothing that might grab viewers, content to have us sit back and listen. Perhaps we could even do something else while we watch.
Like The Rescue and Thirteen Lives, Lost in the Jungle will more than likely become the primer for a thrilling, evocative dramatic feature. Despite the candid humanity and perseverance of the documentary’s subjects, the ways in which the filmmakers choose their presentation make the characters feel inaccessible. Putting us in the moment, not only with the children but also the search parties, would make a world of difference. Considering Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi’s experience with Nyad, it’s easy to wonder if this was an option. But when information is the name of the game, the basic house style is apparently good enough.
DIRECTOR: Jimmy Chin, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Juan Camilo Cruz; DISTRIBUTOR: Disney+; STREAMING: September 13; RUNTIME: 1 hr. 36 min.
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