Wednesday, May 04, 2022

Movie review - "The Blue Lagoon" (1980) ** (warning: spoilers)

 Easy to mock and it deserves to be mocked but it does have its own integrity. Randall Kleiser made it from a place of love. I get the idea: Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Some wish fulfilment - cut off from everyone, free to make your own rules. Living in paradise with a fancy home. The film became iconic. Even now it's famous.

Chris Atkins and Brooke Shields are very beautiful. Direction very male gaze-y on Atkins. Their voices clang. Hard to listen to them talk.

I'm not sure the film would even be legal today. Shields looks older in some scenes but very very young in others, like when she's playing with their baby. She was 14. A body double is used. I don't think so for Atkins. Still, Shields is very sympathetic and charismatic - it was clearly the right decision to cast her.

Stunning photography on locations - it was worth it to go to Fiji and not the Barrier Reef, just looks more "Pacific".

Richard Franklin knew Kleiser at film school and helped production, organising many Aussies to take part in the crew (and cast such as Alan Hopgood).

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