Mountains of the Moon1990

Director
Bob Rafelson

Acters

Patrick Bergin (Richard Burton)
Iain Glen (John Hanning Speke)
Richard E. Grant (Oliphant)
Fiona Shaw (Isabel)
John Savident (Lord Murchison)
James Villiers (Lord Oliphant)

Two strangers made friends by a savage land. Two friends made enemies by the civilized world.
Based on the biographical novel Burton and Speke by William Harrison and filmed on location in Africa and England, it recounts two expeditions during the middle of the 19th century to discover the source of the Nile. Explorer, scientist, poet, and linguist Richard Burton, a towering individualist with a yen for cross-cultural exploration, leads an 1854 expedition in Africa to locate the legendary river’s headwaters. John Speke, a former member of the British army in India, joins the expedition and forges a bond of friendship with Burton. On their second trip, he becomes obsessed with finding the Nile’s source to the point of jeopardizing their relationship and ignoring the journey’s abundant revelations about Africa and its peoples.
“Despite the film’s rousing thrills, startling beauty and searching performances, the prevailing tone is meditative, sorrowful – as befits its subject. Other directors have explored the ambitions of dreamers, but none can equal Rafelson in charting the treacherous terrain between the start of a rainbow and the pot of gold at its end.” – Rolling Stone
“’Mountains of the Moon’ (the translation of the native name for the Nile’s source) flows by beautifully and treacherously – a grand and unstoppable rush of style, intelligence, strangeness, and emotion.” – Entertainment Weekly
“Engaging and robust tale of exploration and adventure, ‘Mountains of the Moon’ is a winning old-fashioned adventure movie filled with colorful characters, soaring music, perilous events, exotic cultural practices, and breathtaking cinematography. Rafelson does a top-notch job giving this drama both an intimate feel and an epic focus.” – Spirituality & Practice