The Emerald Forest echoes the deep concern of Deliverance for the alienation of modern society caused by its radical separation from nature. Boorman cast his own son as a young American boy whose kidnapping by an indigenous tribe in Brazil leads his father—an engineer building a dam in the Amazon—on a desperate search that lasts several years. Unlike Deliverance's vision of nature as a terrifyingly indifferent force, The Emerald Forest explores its ultimately benevolent side. It is at once an engrossing ecological fable, a recasting of the Oedipal drama and a post-colonial remake of The Searchers.