Setting Review: The Beach

"The Beach" -- in which Leonardo DiCaprio follows up his "Titanic" shipwreck by playing a breezy young backpacker in a secret tropical island paradise near Thailand - is a breath-taking movie not because of how the story goes but because of the place that looks like a real paradise for me.

What a fantastic location to look forward to. I am someone who would like to travel and these places definitely attract me. Some of the locations I have learned from this movie are:

Phi Phi Island (pronounced Pee Pee), some 30 kilometres off Kabri province, is one of the world's most beautiful tourist destinations. Now a National Park, it comprises of two rocky tree-covered islets -- Phi Phi Don with long, white powdery beaches and Phi Phi Le, uninhabited but blessed with a crystal-clear sea, secluded beaches, cliffs and colourful coral reefs. On the western part of Phi Phi Leh is Maya Bay, a white, sandy beach dominated by a high cliff -- the main location they used for the film. Two other islands: Bamboo Island and Mosquito Island, were used for the scene when the three main leads swam to the beach.

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Phuket - Phuket (pronounced poo-get) is Thailand's largest island and one of the most popular holiday destinations in south-east Asia, attracting up to one million visitors each year. The film studios in Talang were used for interiors as well as the beach bungalows. Many other locations around the island were also used.

Krabi - Krabi city and province doubled for Khao San Road and the marijuana field. In Krabi city they built a large reclining Buddha which can still be seen.

Khao Yai National Park - Khao Yai National Park covers an area of over 2000 square kilometers and the wildlife includes many endangered mammals such as elephants, gibbons, tigers, leopards and Malaysian sun bears. The park was used for the waterfall scene when the three main stars first arrived at the beach.

I think the film is well made and has plenty of place and style. It provides reasonable evidence of a worthwhile cinematic point of view, albeit one in search of something to say. There's a certain amount of worth in their approach, though, as noted, the basic story proves less of a vessel than it might for what was initially such a forceful voice. Individual scenes are impressive, and on the whole it holds together well enough to at least tell its story, such as it is. Likewise the cast do their best with the material provided. DiCaprio is a movie star of the first magnitude, and though he has been hyped to a point where his acting may become moot, he has proved himself capable of holding centre stage on previous occasions even when pitched against material (Romeo + Juliet) and pyrotechnic distractions (Titanic) which would crush a lesser man. His reading of the character is entirely appropriate, shifting from fresh-faced idealist to borderline psychotic, and though he does his best to invest it with depth, there is simply not enough there for it to be really convincing. His star power keeps the film going though, especially when it becomes evident that even Tilda Swinton (Orlando) can't do much with her tribal leader, around whom much of the later tension should revolve, and thus that no genuine drama is likely to appear. The ubiquitous Carlyle is very enjoyable in his brief role, and certainly makes more of an impression than either of the French youngsters who spend more time on screen as the rather tokenistic European counterfoils to DiCaprio's American ("I don't think in kilometres", he smugly tells them at one point).

The Beach will work best with young teenagers, though, as noted, it may well simply serve to reinforce self-satisfied postmodern amorality and sell some music albums rather than serve as a journey to the contemporary heart of darkness. This is a pity, but the fault is less with the modern audience than with the film itself, which simply lacks the conviction of any of its literary or cinematic predecessors on the level of story to really make an impact.

What they have created here however is a striking if transient film, a deeply sensual and heavily hedonistic experience.

It is rich, sweet and the pleasure of living in this perfect coastal lagoon ripens until it begins to cloy and then decay, as if the dark fruit of paradise had suddenly gone off with a terrible whiff. And perhaps not intentionally, the movie mirrors this change: enthralling, vivid and stunning to begin with; deteriorating and increasingly flawed as the reels roll on.

In short, I was able to like the movie not because of the story but because of the Imagination that was trying to fashion a haunting image of "paradise": warm winds, palm trees, turquoise water and white sand, a band of like-minded, firm-fleshed Crusoe.