In the course of my global peregrinations in search of cinema, I currently find myself in a lush tropical paradise on the sets of a Hollywood production starring a troika of A-listers. As I’m handed a drink of something with an umbrella in it, my mind wanders to films set in such locations. I would be disingenuous if I didn’t admit that the first film that came to mind was Randal Kleiser’s Blue Lagoon (1980).
I was far too young to watch the tale about a boy and girl shipwrecked on a tropical island in the South Pacific and the inevitable changes that occur when they attain puberty, but watch I did. The film stars Brooke Shields. I am sure there were other actors in it, but unfortunately I have no recollection of them. There have been previous adaptations, in 1923 and 1949, of Henry De Vere Stacpoole’s novel of the same name, but I have not seen them.
While on shipwrecks, Ken Annakin’s Swiss Family Robinson (1960), based on Johan Wyss’ beloved novel, is a delightful adventure where a family must survive on a desert island, while there have been any number of adaptations of Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe , not in the least Robert Zemeckis’ Cast Away (2000), where Tom Hanks’ only friend on his desert island is a Wilson volleyball. And then there is Nicolas Roeg’s Castaway (1986) where a middle-aged man from London advertises for a female companion to spend a year with him on a desert island. Once on the island, it emerges that the woman who’s taken the chance is a far stronger person than he is.
Desert islands need not always be paradise. The humans in it define the nature of paradise. In Peter Brook’s seminal Lord of the Flies (1963), based on William Golding’s novel, the boys who survive a plane crash on an island soon turn savage; and in Danny Boyle’s The Beach (2000), based on Alex Garland’s novel, Leonardo DiCaprio finds out that what, on the face of it, looks like tropical heaven hides some dark secrets.
These islands can also be a façade that hides desperate human drama. Alexander Payne’s The Descendants (2011) is set in ravishing Hawaii, but George Clooney’s character is facing losing his wife after a boating accident and he is disconnected with his daughters. While in Hawaii, Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park (1993) begins amicably enough but all hell breaks loose when dinosaurs and other assorted genetically recreated prehistoric creatures run amok on the island.
Islands can also be an ideal location for regeneration as evidenced in Kevin Rodney Sullivan’s How Stella Got Her Groove Back (1998), based on Terry McMillan’s novel. Angela Bassett plays a hot shot but overworked New York stockbroker and divorcee whose friend Whoopi Goldberg convinces her to take a break in Jamaica. There she begins a steamy affair with Taye Diggs, who’s half her age, and reassesses her life choices.
Finally, islands can be where filmmakers find themselves. After completing In The Cut (2003), Jane Campion took a few years off, living a hermit’s existence in a hut in the middle of nowhere in New Zealand’s South Island because “I wanted to see who I’d be without work.”
Naman Ramachandran is a journalist and author of Rajinikanth: The Definitive Biography, and tweets @namanrs
