Yeah, that seemed a bit odd in what was otherwise quite a good movie... especially considering that James Grey, the director, isn't known for upbeat commercial endings... His other movies have all been a bit dark... The Yards and We Own The Night aren't exactly happy movies...

I agree. I enjoyed the film a lot - it was beautifully shot and highly engaging for most of its length - but the ending didn't work. I would have preferred a more enigmatic ending. Nobody knows what happened to Fawcett and his son (also his son's friend who vanished with them, but who was not mentioned here) and the film should have reflected this and omitted those final scenes. What was the problem with ending as they set sail for South America, or with their last recorded contact with other humans? Basing the ending on one of the many speculated fates of Fawcett and co - essentially fictionalising their end - was not the best way to conclude this movie.

i found this interview with the director where he talks about the ending...

https://www.moviefone.com/2017/04/18/lost-city-of-z-director-james-gray-interview/

So if I immediately get rid of the David Grann stuff and immediately get rid of the James Lynch stuff which, if you've read the book, was quite helpful to me for the ending of this movie, I had something that was more like a novella, which was much more manageable. But even there I had to lose huge chunks of story which I loved -- the whole thing how he met and married his wife, it was like something out of a Bronte book, it's crazy -- and I had to reduce the eight trips to three, one for every act of the film.

But I didn't have a problem with that. It's always been a ludicrous criticism of narrative features like, "It's not totally historically accurate." This is not a documentary. You don't watch "Richard III" and start booing because it's not accurate. You use history as a very open way, as a way of expressing how you feel about the world, in this form, and so I figured I could just lose the Grann stuff. Now, if you've read the book you remember the James Lynch stuff, the investment banker in Brazil who brings his son, who talks about them making him kneel and the circle and all that. So I used that when thinking about what happened to Fawcett. I staged all the stuff at the end copying the James Lynch portion of the book and Lynch get saved basically by a seaplane coming down the river but Mr. Fawcett didn't have that option.

I still would have rather had a more unanswered ending as it seems it is both true to life and more thought provoking... What do you guys think?

For what it's worth, the movie's star Charlie Hunnam reportedly has his own theory on how the Fawcetts met their fate.

link

@Renovatio said:

i found this interview with the director where he talks about the ending...

I still would have rather had a more unanswered ending as it seems it is both true to life and more thought provoking... What do you guys think?

Yeah the ending was unfortunate. I think it would have been better had they ended it as they encounter the natives or as they're captured. The stuff with the wife at the end was fine, save for the implication that they could be alive. I read something about the compass being given away during the '20 expedition, which would obviously mean that its return had nothing to do with their disappearance.

Indeed, it was the worst ending possible. I was expecting they'd either make a great fictional ending where he finds the city underground or a real ending showing them being killed and eaten by ppl. Suggesting he decided to live with the indios was so bad. He did the travels willing to become famous, he and his son wouldn't abandon their family to live in the jungle.

Ok, they made that ending suggesting his wife was dreaming of them living happily and they didn't wanna make the slight suggestion that the city exists. But it's still the ending they made.