MOVIE REVIEW : ‘EMERALD’ BURNS BRILLIANTLY

Mysterious and powerful, “The Emerald Forest” (opening citywide Wednesday) is the summer’s greatest surprise and most solid satisfaction. John Boorman has made an intelligent film of surpassing beauty--adventure with an ache of urgency behind it. In its story of family and loss, growth and separation, it speaks to the deepest feelings we all share. And in its sensuous and magical portrait of primitive tribal life, it may just be a classic.

The film grew from a real incident: a brief Los Angeles Times report in 1972 about a 7-year-old boy mysteriously abducted from his family at the edge of the Brazilian jungle. Screenwriter Rospo Pallenberg, who co-wrote “Excalibur” with director Boorman, has extended the story and given it a colossal ending that seems a little like a metaphysical afterthought. But he has kept its core intact: the dogged faith of a father who for 10 years has spent all his free time journeying into the almost impenetrable rain forest, searching for his son.

His reward came almost as it does in the film (actually it was more amazing in real life than on screen, and that’s pretty amazing) as father Bill Markham (Powers Boothe) finally encounters his son (17-year-old Charley Boorman), who has become a full-fledged member of an almost unknown Amazonian tribe who call themselves the Invisible People.

They meet under lethal circumstances. Markham, an American engineer, has been part of a group constructing an immense dam in these Amazon headlands. (The actual Tucurui dam, the world’s fourth-largest and still under construction, was used in the film’s location, and the scar it has left on the jungle is horrifying.)

In a country where each action has a corresponding counterbalance, the dam has displaced the tribal lands of a group called the Fierce People, who have consequently moved inland, into the Invisible People’s territory. It is while being pursued by the marauding Fierce People that Markham encounters his son, who is now called Tomme.

Boorman constructs carefully. We meet the Invisible People before Markham does. They are invisible in the jungle, with their camouflage of leaves and their intricate green body painting. By the time Markham invades their lives, we’ve already gotten to know their humor, their dignity, their gentleness and the profound magic of their rituals. The most awesome of these involves a hallucinogenic green powder with the power to call up a tribesman’s spirit animal. Blown into the subject’s nostrils with the force of a dart gun, the powder works like a mixture of LSD and wasabi , but it does wonders for spirit creatures. Under its dazzling effect, Tomme soars on eagle’s wings, peering into the past and present.

Like “Walkabout,” “The White Dawn,” “Never Cry Wolf” or “Dersu Uzala,” “The Emerald Forest” illuminates an exotic people with an almost hypnotic fascination. All the film’s elements conspire in this: its thrumming, eerie, otherworldly, beautiful score by Junior Homrich; the cinematography of Philippe Rousselot (“Diva”) and Simon Holland’s production design, which give the film a hauntingly verdant look; the extraordinary tribal movements by Jose Possi, which link the Indians to the animals in their surroundings; the costumes and woven feathered headdresses by Christel Boorman and Clovis Bueno, and Peter Frampton’s constantly changing body painting, in which the men look like birds or animals or designs from the Lascaux caves.

Such details make the jungle civilization profound and tangible and sharpen the conflict that follows--the father’s anguished need to bring his son home to his family and the boy’s feeling that he already has a family: a father, the tribal leader; a mother, a sweetheart and his sure place in the natural world.

There is another, larger issue, one that has preoccupied Boorman in almost every film (“Deliverance,” “Hell in the Pacific,” even “Excalibur”): the consequences when blundering outsiders invade or affront a civilization, held in its own delicate balance. In the case of “The Emerald Forest,” the damage is both to nature and people: Markham’s bringing of a deadly weapon into a Stone Age civilization is one of the most dreadful metaphors for the intrusion of man into the natural order of things.

Both Boothe and young Boorman, son of the director, have roles that make the most harrowing physical demands. But more than their physicality, the two had to possess the inner quality of their characters--and they do. Boothe, who has seemed cold and opaque before, has a warm, quiet melancholy under his strength. Boorman is palpably sweet, and seems to mature under our eyes.

All of the cast members are fine, in particular Rui Polonah’s magnificent tribal father, Dira Paes as Tomme’s direct, sensual young bride-to-be, and Meg Foster, who creates in a few scenes the continuing strength of Markham’s wife.

Inevitably there is violence as the delicate world of the Invisible People is breached. Yet even with its violent scenes, “The Emerald Forest’s” exploration of the innermost meaning of family and the tenuous balance of our natural world delivers a vital message in a seductive package.

‘THE EMERALD FOREST’ An Embassy Films Associates release. Produced and directed by John Boorman. Executive producer Edgar F. Gross. Co-producer Michael Dryhurst. Screenplay Rospo Pallenberg. Camera Philippe Rousselot. Production design Simon Holland. Editor Ian Crafford. Sound editor Ron Davis. Music composed and performed by Junior Homrich with Brian Gascoigne. Tribe choreography Jose Possi. Costume design Christel Boorman, Clovis Bueno. Special makeup Peter Frampton. Art director Marcos Flacksman, set decorator Ian Whittaker. Special effects supervisor Raph Salis. Miniatures Phil Stokes. With Powers Boothe, Charley Boorman, Meg Foster, Rui Polonah, Dira Paes, Claudio Moreno, Tetchie Agbayani, Paulo Vinicius, Eduardo Conde, Estee Chandler.

MPAA-rated: R (persons under 17 must be accompanied by parent or adult guardian).

Running time: 1 hour, 55 minutes