Down There in the Jungle (1988) User Reviews

A pleasant tribute to 'old style' adventure movies.

[robytdd · 7/10 · 30 April 2019]

It start with a bus trip in the middle of Italy to end up in a sort of Amazon jungle that hides an important secret: is it possible? Of course it is, at least according to the director Stefano Reali, here at his debut feature film (written in collaboration with Pino Quartullo) after the Academy Award nomination for the short "Exit" (1985).

It's an ironical and light-touched homage to a certain adventurous cinema that was popular a few decades ago and it's enjoyable, with some nice ideas, good production values, Carlo Savina's soundtrack just perfect.

Delightfully surreal.

[minniemouse · 8/10 · 5 August 2006]

I came across this little masterpiece on TV, late one night, by pure chance. No-one seems to have ever heard of it here in Italy. The plot is quite simple, during a bus ride in the Italian countryside a group of nine people get stranded along the highway (the bus has to stop because of a blown tyre and then departs without them). Their journey back to some inhabited place slowly becomes a magical adventure, where tamed woods become wild jungles and nothing is what it seems. The characters themselves, quiet, common people at the beginning, undergo a transformation that makes them very similar to those dark, cynical, mysterious characters in Hollywood 40es dramas set in Africa or Asia. Even their demeanor and their voices change, they all seem to have some dark secret in their past, all their good qualities and faults come out sharp, heroes and villains, coward husbands and misbehaving wives. They all have to come to terms with their past but at the end of the journey they will all be stronger, better persons. I strongly recommend it.