Latest / Everyone's A Critic / The Beach w/ Jordan Brookes

Transcript

The Beach w/ Jordan Brookes · Everyone's A Critic

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to Everyone's Critics.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_02: The show where a guest picks a movie rated below 40% on Rotten Tomatoes and tells us why critics got it wrong.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_02: I'm your host, Yannis Cove, a formerly pretentious film school student.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_02: My guest today is a Nibra Comedy Award-winning comedian, Jordan Brooks.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks for having me.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_03: How are you doing today?
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I'm alright, not too bad.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_03: Just looking at the news today is uh they've they've just announced a lot of uh help help for for certain sectors, but again, not the arts.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_03: So um yeah, we continue to watch our hopes and dreams perish.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's a lot of fun at the moment, isn't it?
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_03: And I just saw something about like they're offering about 20% or something to yeah, 20% of what or yeah, so yeah, so previously it was like 75% or something, now it's now it's 20%.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, to really get us through those uh those those winter months that are famously um famously easy in many ways.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_02: They've announced it's it's until April as well, so it's a good yeah, like six, seven months of that.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, all very exciting.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_03: Um so yeah, buzzing to talk about something very very micro and in insignificant in the grand scheme.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_02: Well, let's talk about a movie that that is about escapism then.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, let's do it.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um so you you uh decided to pick the movie The Beach.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um the Leonardo DiCaprio film from 2000 was it's rated uh 20%, I believe, on Rotten Tomatoes.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's got 20%.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_03: I can't believe that.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_03: It's not a very it's it's very low.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_03: It's very low, it's dangerously low.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_03: Um I mean I'm I'm interested to sort of explore why why that is, or why I or why I felt like it was a a more uh regarded film.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so what is your history with the movie then?
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_02: Like um do you have uh do you remember when you first saw it or anything?
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_03: So I was I was 14 when it came out.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_03: I don't I don't think I would have seen it in the cinema.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_03: I think I rented it.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_03: I think DVDs were out then, but I I think I think I watched it on VHS, I think I rented it.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_03: And um I loved it because it obviously represented a an ideal, you know, it represented a utopia.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_03: And so for a sort of, you know, for a teenager who's trying to work out who he is and what he wants to do with his life, this was just mesmerizing.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_03: Um and it also and also as a teenager, I think you tend not to pick up on the cautionary tales.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_03: You just you remember you remember the first half of the film where everything's amazing.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_03: Um so I think Shipwrecked, the TV show, came out around about the same time as well.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, and obviously that was that was a a reality TV show um where there was lots of I think it was like teenagers or young adults put on a put on a beach and sort of you know left to fend for themselves, um theoretically.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_03: And yes, uh again, I really really yeah, you didn't literally watch people suffer, but uh it was on T4, so it was a Sunday morning thing.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_02: But I remember what's her name, Melinda Messenger as the host.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_03: Oh no, I don't think so.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, maybe they did have a host to begin with, but they certainly didn't later on.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_03: I might be mixing up with something else completely.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe, but they they they had it, it was a similar kind of aesthetic to the beach, and it was a similar soundtrack.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_03: In fact, they may have even used the same music, you know.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_03: So all of this sort of came about at the same time, and so I think for me it represented uh yeah, a kind of um uh an ideal uh of of of how of how people could live, you know, um competitively and on TV.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_02: And then you went and re-watched it again and realised what uh how much it's changed, and like how much it changes halfway through the movie.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, even the reality show as well, the the the shipwrecked show is very um, you know, it represents something amazing.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_03: I mean it's it's just the idea of people coming together as a community and then and then what basically we're kind of going, oh, you think you can live in in a world of idealism.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_03: Well, let's put that into into you know, let's let's explore that practically and show why why these things never work.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_03: Um but yeah, the beat.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_03: So so I just I loved the I loved the yeah, I guess I loved what it represented for me, you know, the the beach.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_03: And um, and then I read the book, and the book is amazing as well.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_03: The book is really, really special.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_03: Um, quite different as well.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_03: Uh it's got a slightly bleaker ending.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_02: How slightly bleaker end?
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's slightly well, it's slightly more savage.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_03: Um, okay, yeah.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but I think that's more realistic then as well.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_02: I can see that kind of progressing that way.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_03: Well, they've got it in the film as well.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_03: They sort of touch on it.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, the the issue with the film, I think, is that it is that it it hits the sort of beats of what the film of what the book is trying to explore, but it doesn't do it in depth enough.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_03: It's too scared to be anything other than appealing to post-Titanic Leonardo DiCaprio fans.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and it's all very like you know, MTV generation.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_03: So it's it it it lacks it lacks the but it it certainly tries, it certainly it certainly does go there, but it doesn't go anywhere near as far as the book does, obviously.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_02: I wonder if did you know that um you and McGregor was supposed to be the lead in it originally?
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_03: Really?
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and um then the studio said because Danny Boyle had it as his first choice, because like they'd worked together and everything, and he was like, Oh yeah, that that that's my first choice, and then the studio like really pushed for Leonardo DiCaprio, and that caused like a massive falling out between you and McGregor and Danny Boyle.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_02: But I wonder if like um Ewan McGregor had been in it, they would have gone darker then, like you said, and like focus on what happened in the book.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_03: It's so it certainly hints at a sort of pr producer meddling, which is which is rarely good.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_03: Um yeah, that's really that that's that that's really interesting because the the the character in the book is um is British, I think.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and uh yeah, the the pro I mean Leonardo DiCaprio got nominated for a for a Razzie um for for for his performance in the beach.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_03: I mean I don't think it's that bad, but I think that's a good thing.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_03: I think the performance is fine.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's just fine.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think it's bad, yeah.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_02: Like you said, it's not bad.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_03: No, the problem the the problem is is is with the problem isn't isn't just with Leonardo DiCaprio.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_03: It's the whole the whole cast, you know, if you're doing something about new agey utopian ideals and the kind of people that that attracts, they are it's they're very difficult to like.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, these sort of like laid-back sort of douchebags, um packing across Asia.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_03: Like you you do sort of uh it's very hard to connect with people like that.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_03: And when you've got a whole when you've got a whole cast of them, it's um it puts you a bit of a distance.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_03: I think I I think I think I read that Danny Boyle actually did he he realised that he was he hated the characters.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_03: He hated it.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_03: He was while he was making it, he realized that he was, you know, he couldn't he he couldn't connect with the story that he was trying to tell.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_02: That does make sense.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah like I I I remember liking it when I first saw it, which was when, probably when it came out as well.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_02: Like I so I went to Thailand when I was 13, which was 2000.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_02: I wasn't I didn't go on my own, I went with a family and everything.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but it was like 2000 Oh no, it was 15, because it was 2004.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I was 15.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it had like so we were we all watched the beach before we went there because that's the area we were going to anyway.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_02: And we're like, oh, this looks amazing and everything.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_02: And now watching it back again for the first time in like probably a decade, it's like, oh, I hate all these characters.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_02: I hate everything about this, they've ruined everything about it as well.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I think what they represent uh for to people generally, and certainly watching it again recently, is um how those people they they put they purport to be very open and and community driven, but as the film shows, inevitably the worst human traits bubble to the surface and mindful.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that's how I feel when I meet when I meet these sort of like LA douchebags who are just like oh free love man and and wanting to kind of you know put across this idea of being laid back and and actually they they turn out to be kind of passive aggressive freeloaders, yeah.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_03: And um who who are who are just as beholden to their worst impulses as anybody else is, and I think people are offended when someone pretends that they're not, you know?
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so I think that's why we I think that's why we find those people particularly unlikable or unrelatable.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_03: So it's it's hard to put it's hard to put that, it's hard to do a film about that.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_03: But I don't think it's impossible.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_03: I I think I think it just needed the whole thing needs more depth.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_03: All the characters need more depth, and it needs to be explored.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_03: It is it's yeah, as I say, it's sort of it sort of hits the the beats, but it doesn't it doesn't do enough really.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_02: I think we don't learn about any of their backstories as well, which is kind of uh I think that's a big misstep because we don't learn about anything from their past.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_02: It's like very, very lightly touched on.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um then we can't actually attach anything to them beyond what we're seeing there, and what we're seeing there is like brand brand new to a lot of them anyway.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_03: So totally, it's pure bliss.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_03: They're just living, they're just living a blissful life.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_03: But like, why do you want that life?
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_03: What has what has motivated you to do that?
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_03: What what sort of I mean I guess I guess they do get it does kind of get explored later on in terms of the way that people betray their own ideals, you know, or or are exploitative in some way, like Sal sleeping with Richard, um you know, cheating on her boyfriend, and the sort of um I guess like there's a there's a sort of there's a sort of degree of exploiting power there, you know.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_03: Um but it's again it's just not enough.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_03: It's just never it's just never enough.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I uh let me explain the the basic premise of the movie just for anyone that hasn't seen it, in case they're listening and haven't seen it.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_02: So it's it's uh basically a a movie about a guy who fight who goes to Thailand, an American guy, he goes to Thailand, um, and when he's uh on like a backpacking trip, and then when he's staying in like a hostel, the guy next door is like this crazy, like out there guy.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: He hands he like leaves him a map behind to this uh and he tells him about this like ideal place in the mid in somewhere in Thailand where everyone is staying like it's this blissful place in the middle of nowhere, uh where people are just like a community and they're just enjoying themselves and living a life free of like all the tourism and all this stuff.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so he goes on this he goes on a trip there, discovers it with these like two other people, um, they go on a trip and live in this like community for a while.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um that's the basic premise of it.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_02: I don't really know what to say.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_03: Um I assume that's how Danny Boyle pitched it as well.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_02: I hope not, because that was a terrible pitch.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I I I'm sold on it.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_03: I want to watch it again.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I'm even though you just watched it.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I want to watch the version that you just described rather than the original.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_02: Well, what what's different about what I described then?
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_02: What what what what did I miss?
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_03: Uh it sounds uh it sounds it sounds more like it's uh it sounds a bit like it's based on a fever dream rather than rather rather than attempting to be anything necessarily coherent, which I'd rather watch.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_02: But at the same time, half of this movie does feel like a fever dream.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_02: Like there's a lot of it that does.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_03: That's true.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_03: That's true.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_03: They do a lot of like, particularly in the sorts in the sort of second half of the film when Richard is sort of sent into kind of semi-exile.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_03: He's meant to guard the island and he loses his mind.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_02: That's when it really loses the movie, like really takes a drop there for me.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean in the in the book it's less it's less pronounced.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, he does he does sort of lose his mind, but it's it's it's not quite as I mean the way that they depict it is very sudden and it's very like well, it's very like if you said to Leonardo DiCaprio, can you depict what a crazy person would do?
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, Leonardo DiCaprio, beautiful man who's untroubled by anything, would then do that.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_03: Do you know what I mean?
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_03: It's not really it's not really nuanced.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_03: Um but um he it's there's there's an interesting visual bit where they it suddenly looks like a video game.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_03: I hate it.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_03: Um it's horrible, and he's like, I hate it.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_03: Um I remember hating that when I first saw it.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_03: Thinking this feels clunky and out of place.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_03: Um and the I guess I guess I guess it's like, I mean, I guess he's trying to because there's a bit, there's a bit earlier on where he's playing uh a video game on on the Game Boy, yeah.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_03: And then and then just after that, the uh the guys who get involved in a shark attack where two of them end up dying, um, come arrive on the beach, and and it sort of cuts between them being you know their their bloodied wounds and Richard playing the Game Boy, and I guess they're trying to sort of draw uh parallels, but it's not really it's not really clear what the parallels are.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_03: It feels like he's just sort of dropping the elements so that he can later do the computer game thing, and we go, Oh yeah, it's sort of about like how we're all kind of obsessed with violence or something or brutality is inherent in in everything, even culture and do you know what I mean?
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_03: It's just like what are you even saying?
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, um yeah, I really I really hated that bit.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_03: It took it took me it took me out of it significantly.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it it is the point where I'm just like, I don't first of all, he's his character changes so much from that point onwards that I don't I and it comes out of no almost comes out of nowhere.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's like he's gone into shock almost, but at the same time, I don't know, it's too much too much.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_03: There's very little reason for him to have gone into that place.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_03: You know, in the book it kind of makes a bit more sense because it's a bit it's a bit more gradual, but it's uh it's all very sudden.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_03: What what I did like was the shock on his face when when the um the the cannabis farmers find or like tr um catch the the four idiots who have tried to come over who followed Richard's map, and um they shoot the the final person, and it's because Richard is in the crops and he snarls like the monkey snarled at him at the beginning, and then the shock on his face as sort of realizing his own inhumanity at that point is great, like it's well, it's very you know it's it's very well done, but it's um yeah, I guess like the next feel to it enough, they just like kind of they they he he seems to go away for some kind of amount of time into the mountain, like into into the hilltops and like sit there, but it's never fully like it it could be a day, it could be a week, it could be like it's it's never clear how long he's gone for.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_02: And even when the guy finds him, he's just like, Oh, where have you been, Richard?
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_03: And yeah, and he's just like, I just popped up to the island.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_03: So four people get murdered, I'm back now.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, it's all it's all very um, yeah, I guess I guess the worst thing you could say about it is it's just uneven and a bit and a bit I get I guess like dictionary definition term of pretentious in that it in that it sort of sets its sights higher than what it achieves.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you know, it looks like it's saying more than it actually is, but maybe you know, obviously hearing about the Ewan McGregor casting thing and m maybe it is maybe maybe the the film that Danny Boyle made wasn't the one that he wanted to or thought he was making.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_02: Because you know he can make those that kind of thing as well.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_02: He's like he's fully capable of it, Danny Boyle.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_02: Like he's he's a good director, and so like I don't know.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um I don't even know.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_02: I don't even think necessarily that the directing is bad, as much as it like I don't know.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's a clunky story in the middle of it more than anything.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_03: It is, I think it's just it's just the way that the way that they've sort of executed it.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_03: It it's it looks really good, it looks it looks beautiful, it uh it's got a great soundtrack.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_03: Um it is yeah, I think it is well directed.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_03: The characters are the the characters for all of their unlikability are strangely likable, like Patterson Joseph's character is great.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_03: Um I think that yeah, Tilda Swinton's great.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_03: I mean that the there are some, but it's um they're good, but I hate them at the same time.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_02: So but I guess like it's it's not a bad thing to hate a character.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_03: Um it's just a hard it's just I just don't think there's been any like it's not been approached with any sort of self-awareness in terms of okay, what are we actually talking about here?
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_03: We're talking about the the clash of uh a utopian ideal with the reality of what it means to be a human being, and it's not it's just sort of there, inherent in the premise of the thing, but it's not really used as the driving force.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_03: Instead, it's Richard inexplicably going mad and becoming, you know, I guess like living on the outskirts of society and and going a bit nuts.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_03: It's like, well, there's not that's not interesting to me.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_03: I want to see, I want to see how something is subtly undermined by these things, and you do sort of get hints of it with Richard go getting together with the um uh Francoise, yeah, and you know, the boyfriend sort of dealing with it very, very nicely as well, just sort of saying, Look, if you make her happier, then you should be with her.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um I think he's the one redeemable character in this in this movie.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_03: He is, and he and he's the only one who objects when they're when they're when they br when they when one of the guys is is gonna die, and he's saying, Can we please bring medical assistance to the island?
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_03: And Sal is saying no.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_03: He's the only one who stays with the guy when they when they basically turf him out and leave him leave him to die.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_03: Um yeah, there's a lot of there's a lot of good, there's a lot of lovely moments in it, and it does sort of pick up a little bit towards the end.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_03: Um I think there's the sort of turning point of when Sal is instructed to kill Richard.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_02: That's a very good scene.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_03: I I like that.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_03: It's a great scene, it's really great, and the the sort of horror of people realizing the the length that someone would go to to protect their utopia is is brutal and nasty, and it's not not worth it.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_03: Um, which I think is yeah, I I think it I think is I think it's really interesting.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_03: I mean it yeah, it reminded me of um I did a I did a week-long clowning course back in like 2014, and it and part of it was you had to sort of stay in the on on this little commune.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_03: There was about 15 of us maybe, um, and we slept in yurts together, and so there was a real sense of community.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_03: We were cooking together, we were doing lots of bonding exercises, dancing around a fire, telling stories, you know, weeping openly, jumping into the lake naked.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_03: Um, that was probably the closest I got to living that beach idea.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_03: And it was interesting how, like, since seeing the beach in my teenage years, I probably became a bit more cynical and and withdrawn.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_03: But when I did this climbing course, I was like, just go, just overlook all of your reservations about the new, this sort of smug new ageiness of it, just surrender yourself to it.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_03: And I really enjoyed like I loved it.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_03: I loved the I I loved the the bubble that we created together.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_03: But there is always that part of you that goes, yeah, but what if something's wrong happened?
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_03: Or what if what if my what if my partner suddenly falls in love with someone else on the you know, and it it's interesting to sort of it is it's interesting to watch that stuff unfold in the beach where Yeah, I mean I g I I guess this is the thing that that undermines all of all of these ideals, you know, is inevitably human drama kind of sabotages it all.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_02: I think I think it's interesting that you said like you kind of embraced it there as well, because like isn't it in clowning where they like kind of break you down as a as they they they break you down as a person and like build you back up again?
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_02: So it's kind of in that element of what they're doing there, uh what Sal is doing to a lot of them there as well, of like breaking down all their barriers, bringing like and so they're kind of like trusting her purely, even though even though they say she's leading it, but she doesn't really lead it, she does completely like she fully leads it, and they like they they go to her for everything.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, I don't know if you felt that with your your with your treat teachers in the clowning uh when you did your clowning course or anything like that, where you were like kind of uh leaning on everything that they said, or if it was just kind.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: Of a a thing of like the communal aspect of it more so.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_03: It's sort of pseudo-communal, but it's got but it's got one person's vision, I guess, kind of over the top of it.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_03: But it didn't, it never felt like we were being made to do anything we didn't want to do or an element of kind of Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_03: No, but um there's there's an uh there was definitely an element of like breaking us down and s letting us sort of which is I mean I guess that's why the Beach Appeals appealed to me at the time, is because it promised a better life or a better self.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_03: You know, it promises breaking down your insecurities and living freely, yeah, and living openly.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_03: And uh, I mean I still I still believe I still I still believe in that.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_03: I still I still think that that is probably the the the the correct way to live if we if we were you know had more opportunities to live that way.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_03: Um so yeah, definitely clowning sort of it was a it was a little microdose of what it would have been like to live on a remote beach in Thailand.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_02: And you had it in the back of your mind, did you have like that in the back of your mind the whole time of like of everything about the beach?
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_03: I had I had that, and I also had Lars von Trier's The Idiots, which is um very, very different film.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_03: Um but I think the living aspect was the beach, and then the clowning aspect was definitely the idiots.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_03: That's both very dark turns they could have taken.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but great, and I'd do it again.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_03: I'd um I'd I'd happily I'd happily go and live in the beach and just see what happened just just see what happens.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_03: I'd happily take my chances.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_02: Have you ever been to Thailand or anywhere like anywhere similar to that?
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_03: No, no, I've never been anywhere that sort of um exotic, I guess.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_03: That sort of uh yeah, anything that promised a remoteness from from the real world.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_02: It's just it's very interesting to see that um at least that area.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I know they've closed the island off now, so like that specific bit, that beach, you can't you cannot go to it now because of the tourism that like ruined was ruining it.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_02: Really?
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_02: And but that's interesting.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I know that they um the tourism board like took issue with like um with them filming there and everything, because they had to cut down like loads of trees and all of this stuff and like ruin things just to film there, and then they had ended up having like some kind of um like monsoon or something that ruined the area that would the trees would have protected and um Oh wow.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_02: So that's like changed that whole area.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_02: And I know that um the islands nearby and everything now, uh where you stay, like uh uh what's it called?
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_02: Ko Kofi?
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_02: Kofi Island?
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's just that um it's full of tourists now.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_02: So like it's it's like really turned into what they go what they see um when he comes back from the island and he goes to like uh and he's like sees all the people there and everything, that's what it's like now.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um I mean that's such a that's that that feels so appropriate.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_02: So it's like you can never as soon as people discover it, and I think that's the thing of like as soon as people discover it, it ends up getting kind of overrun and ruined.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_02: That's the that's kind of what they were going for a little bit.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um which is why the reason that now wanted to.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_03: That is the sort of oh god, sorry.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_03: To keep it closed, and and I was gonna say, like, that's the reason why she yeah, that's the reason why she sort of wanted to to keep it um secretive.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_03: But it's really fascinating.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_03: It's really it's really yeah, that that bit when he comes back and he sees things for he sees the degradation, he sees he sees the the excess, he sees people um you know, he sees the the kind of debauchery and the corruption.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_03: Um yeah, I mean I I mean I feel like that if I'm just like if I if I'm doing a gig and I'm having to walk through central London to get the bus, I feel I feel like Leonardo DiCaprio returning from the beach after six months away.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you have you go through like Leicester Square or something, just like horrible.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_03: Um yeah, it's a great, it's uh it's a great it's a great, it's a great bit.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and then of course Sal sleeps with Richard, which yeah, I think that's such a such an that's a really interesting bit, right?
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_03: That's a really interesting scene, and and it's it is it is sort of her it is it is the the it is the sort of the mix of like of that free love mentality, but also the clash with monogamous ideals, yeah, because her boyfriend doesn't want her boyfriend to know.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yet she is completely blasé with it.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_03: Um and I think it really yeah, it really hints at like a a complicated moral compass that people have when they are trying to move towards an ideal, which you see even now in the real world, you see it now where we have this sort of utopian ideal of the world that we'd like to live in, of equality and and um equal access for all and etc.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but of course, and I think that's sort of been facilitated by things like social media, have given us the the the feeling of power to make it happen, and also the illusion that we perhaps live in more of it than we actually do.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_03: Um so we're yeah, we're all sort of moving, we're all sort of trying to move towards towards that thing.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_03: But of course, the the realities of being a human being and and all you know, in all of its richnesses and all of its darknesses, um, inevitably make it very, very complicated and difficult.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely, yeah.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_03: Um so I what so what I'm saying is the beach the beach now, if it was re-reviewed, I think would get a better response just because of its uh I I'm not sure it would.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like I I feel like it would get a similar response, but like it would get a similar review a similar rating, but in a different way.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_02: Because I think we would look at it I think we'd we're looking at it with like 20 years on it now, so like we know we know what that kind of period of time was like for a lot of people.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it was the it was the it was a similar time to like uh it was when Fight Club could come out as well, like that, you know, that kind of like um fuck the system sort of thing that they put people kind of about at the time that that people and it was like that that very middle class fuck the system sort of thing though, where yeah, it's very safe, it's very safe, and that was sort of it's interesting thinking that like you know the build up to the millennium, there is this sort of we're starting to reflect and we're starting to there's a sort of pushback, um labour get in, and there's this there's a feeling of revolution, and then it's just sort of that didn't happen, you know.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_03: It sort of just carried on as before, and it and um you know it's it's so it's it's I think it's quite appropriate that the the beach itself has become a tourist spot, you know.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_03: That's it that's that says it all really.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_03: Um it's fascinating that that's that that that's what that's what happened.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_03: And so is it people that go because they want to live out there fantasies?
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_02: No, it's people that going out there just to see the beach, they want to like go and like just beyond that beach and like see what it's like because it's not I don't think it's um I don't think it's actually hard to get to.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's very easy to get to that place.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think it's obviously not like a thing where you have to go go through all these places to get to it.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, beyond that I'm not really sure.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_02: Like I think people just go to it and just because it's just like a tourist destination, it's it's like you've seen it in a movie, you want to go there.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_03: Uh yeah, but it's it's what the sort of beach represents, you know, particularly particularly for people like sort of me, you saw it when I was, yeah, my sort of you know, early teens.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_03: It it's so emblematic of a of a better life and um a more exciting life.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_03: So it's it's really it's really interesting that people then go to they don't seek out the beach in reality, they don't seek out that utopia, they seek out the location where the film was filmed, you know.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's true.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_03: They want to live they want to live in the idea of the fantasy, not the fantasy itself.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I wonder if yeah, I do wonder if people have actually like found some kind of island that they can go to and do that.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_02: They might they must have done like some people have found something.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_03: There's gotta be.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um Yeah, so let's let's go through the let's go through like the movie itself and we'll discuss it uh as it happens and then we'll see um what comes up.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_02: So like it opens with um him giving uh he said he says my name is Richard, and he tells like he says some stuff he's like oh it doesn't really matter about my backstory, essentially.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_02: So you don't again you don't learn anything about him.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_02: Just like I'm come to time end.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_03: My name is Richard, that's all you need to know.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_03: No, I think we need to know more actually.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks, Richard.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_02: He lands in Bangkok looking for adventure.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_02: That's all we need, that's all we know about him.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um and he's American, and he talks about um never refusing an invitation, uh, and so he like immediately goes, he gets like taken in by one of those, like one of those guys, and he like goes and goes to drink snake blood, which immediately on land again so he drinks the snake blood and then just like walks away.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_02: He's like, Thank you.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_02: He's like never outstay, you're welcome.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and they all look at him like, well, that was a bit rude.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_03: A bit rude of it.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_03: It's five pounds for a shot of snake blood.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_03: That's a bargain.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_03: Unbelievable, unbelievably rude American man.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_02: Uh yeah, and I wrote down his like peak, peak middle class, uh white complaining, just like of like uh we I need to find some kind of better life uh beyond this like uh nine to five that I'm living, even though it's fine what I'm living.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_03: Like, yeah, the oppressive drug drudgery of clean running water and and uh access to food and basic amenities.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_02: Like right now, that would be right now, having a job would be great.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I'd I'd I'd love to escape the perils of my parents' monthly allowance.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so he goes to he goes to like a hostel, like a cheap hostel sort of place, um, and he stays there, and um Robert Carlisle is in the hallway like yelling about something or another, I don't know, and he's like banging on all the doors and stuff.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um clearly he's going through something, and then uh he like tears open um the like barrier between them between the two rooms and like peeks into the room.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_03: Sort of like mosquito net thing, isn't it?
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, like a mosquito net sort of thing, yeah.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_02: And he tells him about uh and he gives him weed to smoke and everything, and he like tells him about this like perfect utopia, uh utopian beach.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um and he's obviously like not taking it that seriously.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_02: And then he uh But then the next morning he wakes up and he's he's got like a no he doesn't wake up, he c he's coming back from something and he likes uh there's a letter on the door um and it's it's the map uh to the beach and he he goes he goes to Robert Carlisle's room and opens the door and it's covered in blood.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_02: It's just like blood absolutely all over the room, and he like very casually and calmly looks down and sees he's like killed himself and he's very calm about like a dead body that like I would be freaking out, I wouldn't want anything to do with it, I'd go straight home.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and if I'd seen that, I wouldn't want to like trust his map.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_02: I wouldn't be like, oh yeah, I'm gonna go.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you wouldn't see that you wouldn't see well it's like reading a book by an author that you know killed themselves.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_03: You're like, do I want to know do I want to learn what they learned that led to them doing this?
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know, he's just like does that happen in the book?
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_03: Do you do you remember if that I think he does kill himself, yeah.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_03: He's certainly he's a bit more of a prominent figure because what he sort of in the in the book I mean he does appear in the film in flashbacks, not not in flashbacks, but in sort of like hallucination.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_03: What he represents, I think, is like it's it's the it's what it's it's it's him being dissatisfied with with what they built.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_03: So he's one of the fa it turns out that he's one of the sort of founders of this island.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and obviously if you're not gonna be able to.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_02: I think they actually say that in the film like very briefly, but like Yeah, yeah.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_03: But I think it's a bit more lent on in the in the book because he he's almost there's an implication that he has deliberately sabotaged the island by leaving the map to Richard.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_03: He is, I guess, like trying to worsen the thing that he already sees, which is a corruption of the ideal of the island, and so he wants to he wants to almost bring it down.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_02: Hmm.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_02: I wonder why they kind of cut that out then, uh, or at least didn't film it as much, because it's that would be inter that would have been that would have made it a lot more interesting.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_03: Um yeah, it certainly roots it in it certainly it certainly like it allows for some commentary on you know, on on the on uh on people's ideals sort of being corrupted or changing or you know the the the sort of someone realizing that that what they what they've built isn't necessarily sustainable or whatever.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_03: But there's no yeah, there just isn't really that it's just sort of implied that he went a bit nuts.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you don't really know what happened to him beyond that he had he came back from the island and Yeah, went nuts, killed himself, and gave the map away.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um but yeah, so then like they the police come, they make him sign a statement, uh which is entirely entire, he doesn't know what it says.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_02: I thought that would come back again.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um surprised that doesn't because they make a big deal out of the fact that he can't understand it and he's just signing something away.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um so I don't really know what the point of that scene is.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_03: No, there's a lot of yeah, there's a lot of time given to well again.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_03: This is what it feels like with the in it the whole the whole film is that he's Donny Boyle's hitting the beats of what these things might represent in the book or what the meaning they might have, but there's no in the film they have no roots, there's no reason for it.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah, it feels like it's yeah, it feels very unfocused.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um but he keeps running into this like French woman and her boyfriend, um, but he's like kind of got a thing for this French woman, so he he um he asks her and him and and the boyfriend to go uh to go on this trip with him to and see what it's like and everything, and the boyfriend's like really on board with it, uh does all the work for them essentially, gets all the tickets, finds all the places they need to go to, finds some cheap deals to get there.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um and it's a long trip.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know, like it seems they they're going on like overnight coaches and trains, and I I don't know.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_02: There's like one point where they um they find out they have to swim to the last part and it's gonna take like um but they're not sure how far it'll be or anything.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_03: Um it's really far, it's really far, and they're all doing overarm swimming, and uh when I watched that scene, I I realize that I I can only do breaststroke.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_03: And so if there's any if there's any is there any swimming involved in in reaching a beautiful island or uh not dying, I'm in I'm in serious trouble.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_03: I would give it, I would just give up.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_03: I'd give up, but that that would be the point where I'd go, do you know what forget it?
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_03: Pocky beach.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_03: No, it's too far, I can't be bothered.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_03: It's too far.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_03: If you haven't built a tunnel to get there yet, then it's not worth it.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_02: So you wouldn't even go and do what the what the people do later in the in the movie where they make a boat essentially and like like a boat, yeah.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_02: I think they're smarter doing that.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_03: They probably are smarter, but if if someone's making it that hard for me to get there, then you know I'm not gonna f I'm not gonna force my way into the lives of people who have made it their priority to keep me out.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I don't know.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_03: Are you sure it's okay for me to be here?
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's that's entirely what I would say.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_03: And they're so accepting.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean I I I don't want to impose on you.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_02: Like you've got your whole community yourselves.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want to like jump in now.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_03: They've expressly said no visitors as well.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_03: They've expressly said we are not allowed to let outsiders in.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yet they welcome Richard and Francoise and uh Etienne, I think his name is, in with like not I mean certainly not not open arms, but but not crossed arms.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_03: You know, they're like, yeah, okay, fine.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it's mainly the um uh the English guy that lets them in, uh, because he discovers them, doesn't he?
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_02: He um he sees them like jump over into the over the waterfall into like um he said, Oh, it took me an hour or whatever to do that.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_03: And again, it's like, well, why I thought, why are you being so like why are you talking about it as if it's a rite of passage?
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_03: Do you know what I mean?
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_03: Like, why is he going, oh, I thought I you know, you it it took me ages.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_03: Aren't you going, holy fuck, there's three new people here?
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_03: Three new people, yeah.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, which I guess is like the problem in the you know, you can't in the film immediately have them be hostile.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_03: Because then it's a very different film.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I think it would be arguably a better film if they're like exploring that and it's a bit more nuanced and it's a bit more about the internal drama of the island and what the what the the the the arrival of of outsiders represents to them and all that stuff, but it isn't, and of course they have to set they have to make it look like a beautiful place before it then goes wrong.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, even when it goes wrong, it's still a beautiful place, technically, it's just like it goes wrong for the humans.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, the beautiful sun bouncing off those open wounds from a shot.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_02: It's only it only looks bad when you see the blood like dragging up the beach.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and only then do we think, actually, do you know what?
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_03: I think this beach thing might not be a good idea.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um but yeah, so they they jump in the water, he tells them about um he take he's like I'm gonna take you to uh Sal, and uh and they burn the she makes them burn the map of how they got there, yeah.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but of course he's giving it away to the other people before that.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_02: He's made he's like made his own map um and gave it away to like his friends that he met along the way.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um but and he tells him he tells them oh no, that's this is the only copy of the map or whatever.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_02: So he's already he starts off lying to them.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um and they go to the beach, they become a community.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Sal was the lead Sal's the leader, but it's not a big deal, apparently.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um then uh they all say they they grow their own weed and they you can't steal it from the farmers because originally they find the farmers um and uh they they crawl they like manage to sneak away from the farmers uh who all have guns and everything.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_02: It's like a massive marijuana field and um they've also got a little guard monkey as well.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_03: So they've got a little monkey attached to attached to string that's um that's there to sort of alert a sleeping guard, but they also have the monkey run around the field on a leash, presumably looking for for any um intruders.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_03: It's great.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's it's uh certainly interesting.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_02: It's um so they they're not allowed to steal from the farms, but again, that doesn't it doesn't really come up again other than the fact that the other people are just coming through they come through later on, uh, but they just kind of walk through that field.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um but then like they they all have to brand each other, so it's already like um so the last person brands the next person that's come to the island.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um and they keep doing that.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_02: And so um they all have like a three lines on them essentially.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_02: And which is like some it's almost it's not a tattoo, but it's not like a I don't know what it is exactly.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's just like a very hot Yeah, I don't know what it is.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_03: It's just it's just something, I guess.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_03: It's just something.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_03: It's a nice, it's a nice welcoming gesture.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_02: Never forget that you're gonna be able to do it.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_03: Here's three painful wounds on the side of your arm.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um and then they immediately go to like sleeping on the communal floor, which is horrible.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_02: I all I could think of like it must
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, because they all live together, don't they?
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_03: They all live in sort of in like huts.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_03: And um yeah, would you do that?
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_03: Would you live that life?
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_02: Not at all.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_02: No, no.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_02: I I hate that kind of thing.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_02: Are you too I absolutely hate that kind of thing?
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_03: Is there like could you get rid of your possession?
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_03: Do you ever think about if could I get rid of my possessions?
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_03: How would I whittle it down to the bare minimum?
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um I don't think I could do it.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_02: Really?
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_02: I I'm sure I could do it, but I really, really wouldn't want to.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_02: It just it doesn't it does not appeal to me in the slightest.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_02: It never has done it.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_02: Right, right, right.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_02: But I guess like you're like you you had that initially, but do you still have that now?
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_02: That's the feeling of wanting to do that.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_03: Oh for sure.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_03: Like I I um over time I've I've sort of whittled my belongings down and um really yeah.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_03: I d I mean I've got I mean I'm I'm move I'm moving house shortly, so I'm I'm packing everything up again.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_03: And each time I just try and make sure I'm getting rid of erroneous tat.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_03: I mean the stuff that you you know I I sort of I I look at something and I think do I need to continue to own this or can I just enjoy the memory of having had it?
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_03: And often it's the memory is will will suffice, you know.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_03: So I I I'm more than happy to get rid of um anything really of any sort of value, whether emotional or um otherwise, because I I yeah, I I I I would love to live, I would love to live that life.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's I think it's yeah, I think it's very freeing.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_02: I yeah, I I do get the appeal of like getting rid of just tat.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_02: I do get that appeal.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_02: And like for the most part, I don't really have like tat like around but like yeah, yeah.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_03: But the idea of like waking up with someone else's bare leg just sort of like folded over.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that does not just lying on the ground and sleeping, and like uh that doesn't appeal to me at all.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, no, I can see why, I can see why it wouldn't.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_03: And then it's also just like being woken up at the same time as everyone else.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_03: Do you know what I mean?
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_03: Like it's like, well, we're all up now because one person's wanting to one person's making a coffee at 5am, so I guess we're all awake now.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_03: I guess there's uh but there there is something again.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_03: There's I mean, I guess it's it's it's the same the part of me that feels uh um attracted to that world is probably the same part of me that is very vulnerable to being um dragged into a cult.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_03: Because I think I I think there is a part of me that really loves communal, you know, a sort of spiritual connection and getting rid of all of our hang-ups and and really connecting with people and obviously cults.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_03: So promise that.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_03: And if you if you if you've watched any documentaries on cults, they they talk so fondly about the experience, and it they always go, well, the leader was terrible, turned out to be doing awful things as as per, but we all felt like we had never connected better with another human being, and we felt this this trust this you know this great friendship.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_03: It's just a shame that one of us was you know fucking loads of the others or whatever, you know.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_03: It's always the one that has to ruin it.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's all yeah, they're always always like the one leader that kind of like takes over everything and ruins it, does seem to ruin it.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, right.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_02: But then I don't know.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_02: I like my own space as well.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_02: So even even that is just like uh no, I need my own space, I need privacy.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_03: Um but I think I think it's yeah, I think I think the beach, I don't know, it represents yeah, it represents something.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_02: I do get I do see the appeal, but at the same time, it's not it's never been for me.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_02: It's never been for me.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_02: But um yeah, so what happens next?
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_02: They uh oh they pull the guy's tooth out because he he's like um he got a massive toothache and he wants to go to the dentist, um, and she tells and Sal just immediately turns him down.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_02: So this is the first moment where you kind of see um her kind of taking over and taking control of everything.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um so she pulled it's so they say like, oh no, you cannot go to the dentist, you've got to stay here, and they're gonna pull your tooth out for you.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_03: Um yeah, it's almost like the first kind of sign of a flaw in their in their system.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_03: Well, we need to we we are depending on we need something beyond what we you know beyond our means.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but he um but this is the moment where Richard kind of he's sitting there and he's watching it and he finds it funny.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_02: He thinks it's all like great, he doesn't have an issue with it at all, so he hasn't he hasn't like re I don't think he's fully realised the extent of everything yet.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, totally.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um he's kind of enthralled by it still.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um then Francois takes uh Richard out to the beach and they kiss and and sleep together while pure shore plaws plays in the background, which is the first instance of it coming up, and then it comes up again later on, but it kind of just like plays occasionally in the background, unless it's like instrumental versions.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but that's like everyone knows the song, every it's so uh synonymous with this movie, and like everyone knows it.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_03: That's why I'm so I think that's why I'm so drawn to it because it is synonymous with the with that film, but it's also synonymous with Shipwrecked and what I just what I sort of see as yeah, like a kind of a kind of uh yeah, an ideal.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_03: Um but yeah, they do he does something interesting with the it's almost like he kind of limits the frame rate during that bit when they're kissing.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_03: It's got slightly off in a way, and it's another one of those visual things where I'm like, oh, I don't really know if if I like what I don't really know if I'm enjoying watching this kissing at twelve 12 frames per second.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's very jolcy, isn't it?
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but it's another one of those sort of bizarre choices where you go, Well, I don't think there's needed to be in here.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_03: You've sort of you've sort of thrown it in, I guess like as of as an attempt at making it seem or making this film seem more eccentric than it is.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_02: But do you know what's interesting?
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_02: I've just remembered that he's he does the same thing in uh Slam Dog Millionaire at certain point where he does he reduces the frame rate.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I've never been.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_02: No, I don't like that.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_02: It it takes me out of it completely.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, um trying to think, I'm sure he's done it in like 28 days later as well.
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, probably.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_03: Um where there's just every once in a while there's like a bit where you go, What why have you chosen to do that?
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_03: And it's not even it's not even that he's chosen to do that, it's just it's just it serves it's just in such contrast to everything else.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_03: Do the whole film at a reduced frame rate.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_03: I'll watch that.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_00: Oh no.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_03: But 30 seconds in an otherwise full frame rate film.
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_03: No, thank you.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_02: Uh everyone finds out instantly about this, and they they are uh so they get he gets confronted by um what's what's the guy's name?
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_02: The the French guy?
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_02: Etienne, I think.
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_02: I think his name's Destiny.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_02: He confronts him and he says, like, um, I just want her to be happy.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_02: But he's like he's clearly pissed off and like really angry about this.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_02: But he's like, I just want her to be happy, so if that's with you, fine.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_02: And then that's the end of that.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_02: I thought it was quite nice.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_03: I like I liked I liked that he didn't turn it into a sort of, you know, he wasn't bitter or angry, he just reacted like how I think we all hope we we do or would in those situations where we go, okay.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I have to, you know, I have to put I love this person and so I'm I'm prioritizing their happiness over over my immediate happiness.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_03: Um so I quite liked the fact that he was very Yeah.
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that's almost like the free love thing that kind of they are they're aspiring to.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, totally.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um he's all he I feel like he's the clo again, he's the closest to uh understanding it all and understanding what would be the most um the best way of approaching all of this.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um because again, like they could have taken him, they could have taken that guy to uh the hospital and everything, it would have been fine.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_02: Uh they could have brought someone there, it would have been fine.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_02: Uh they could they could have had they there's ways around it.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, for sure.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um But then yeah, so like there's heavy rain stopping um there's heavy rain stopping the site and they need to get like fish and everything, but they can't, and then something they say, oh we have to wait days sometimes, but Rich is just like his ego gets the better of him, he's like oh I'm gonna go in, grabs a stick and goes into the water, and he swims really far out, and then everyone's like shouting at him uh from the beach and everything, and he's like, Oh, I can't hear them, I don't know what they're saying, and everything.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_02: But then he then he re then they realise there's a shark there, and he gets terrified, but then he cuts him like telling the story to the group, and he tells about how he stabbed the shark in the mouth, uh stabbed the shark and killed it, and everything, and uh I just wrote down he's so cocky, like he's so arrogant, and uh it's also just like out of nowhere as well.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_03: It's another one of those inconsistencies where you go, Well, we haven't had any indication that he was like that at all, and that's okay if the island sort of corrupts him in that way, or I don't know, it's just it's just um yeah, it feels like there's a lot of shortcuts to get to the the you know they are all loving the story.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_02: I think he kind of he kind of gets uh taken over by by all of it.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_02: I think he so they're all kind of just sitting and watching, he's like, fine, fine, I'll tell the story.
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_02: He's like, gets very excited about it.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_02: So I think he's just like reveling in the excitement of everyone kind of like embracing him, and uh he's probably like on adrenal he's probably full of adrenaline still.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um but it it just makes me I do I don't like him at that point.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_02: I really don't like him there.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_02: No, but I also I haven't liked him since I haven't liked him the whole time, but like I feel like he's just progressively getting worse.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I haven't liked him since he said my name's Richard in the opening frame.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_03: Um if he's not willing to meet me halfway and tell me a bit about himself, then I'm not gonna make the effort.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, again, we don't know about his past, he might be cocky the the entire time.
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_02: He might have just been a dick.
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_03: Well that's what well that's and then that and that's sort of the kind of what the film is trying to do is that sort of is that split, that duality, you know, that sort of feeling of who we want to be and who we actually are, or you know, the things that make us up who that the sort of I guess like the dysfunctions that that are built into us from birth or from you know, kind of the way we're brought up and what we would like to be.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_03: And there's just not enough of that going on.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_03: And so by taking away any character backstory, there's you taking away any of the sort of thing that makes it interesting.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_03: There's a bit, there's a bit where this is maybe just after, I think.
• 55:16
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe this is the next scene where they realise that some rice has been the next scene and has been like contaminated or something, and so they have to go to the main island um and go shopping.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_03: That's when Richard sees everything for what it is and and feels horrified by the sort of you know, the kind of debauchery on display.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_03: Um just before he goes, he's talking to everyone from the island, and they're they're listing all the things that they want, and all of the things are really material-based.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_03: You know, they want like they want the luxury items, they want all that stuff, and that's really interesting, is that negotiation between the life that you're trying to live and actually the things that still appeal to you and still pander to those things.
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_03: Um, that's again, that's the interesting stuff about it, but it's just not it's just not enough of it.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_02: No, they don't yeah, it's very, very briefly lightly touched on.
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so it kind of just takes away from any kind of uh proper analysis, like you can't look at it in any other way than than what you're seeing there.
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's just very it's too empty.
• 56:23
  SPEAKER_03: Totally.
• 56:23
  SPEAKER_03: It just tells you, it just it just tells you what is happening and what there's nothing, yeah, there's nothing there's nothing interesting.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_03: It's almost like I was when I re-watched it, I I wasn't thinking anything because it was just it was just doing it in front of me.
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_03: Do you know what I mean?
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_03: There was no Yeah, yeah, that's exactly it.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_03: There was at no point when I was going, oh that's interesting, and I thought, okay, now oh that that's a good thing to consider.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_03: It was just sort of going, here it is.
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah, it is maybe I I don't know, maybe he's trying to show the emptiness of it all, but I don't think I don't think so.
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I don't think so.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_03: But it's always um I mean it's something like um have you seen Spring Breakers?
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_03: Spring Breakers is a really good example of how it undermines it sort of sets up something and then and then slowly kind of corrupts itself.
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_03: That's a really good example of of a film that that knowingly undermines its own um aesthetic, or you know, the sort of premise that's implied by its aesthetic.
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um that's a that's a strange film.
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_02: But I like I I do enjoy it.
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_02: I know a lot of people don't like it, but I I I like that movie.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_03: I I quite liked it.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_03: I mean I don't I don't think it's his best film, and I uh I mean I I don't uh yeah, there aren't really I mean like he made he made um Gummo, which is just absolutely insane and amazing.
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_02: I haven't seen any of the other things.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_03: I really I'd I'd recommend I'd recommend Gummo.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_03: There's Julian Donkey Boy, which is good.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_03: I mean they're really they're really hard films to watch, you know, they're very uncomfortable.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_02: That's why I haven't looked around to watching them.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I've heard they're very intense.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_03: They are very, very intense.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_03: Um but he's I think he's I think he's great.
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_03: I think he's really great.
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_03: But but yeah, Springbreakers was really was a really interesting one because it's sort of it sort of implied it sort of promised a film that then you didn't actually get, which is just which is just great.
• 58:23
  SPEAKER_03: For me, that's just a wonderful trick to play on people.
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he wrote kids actually, didn't he?
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_03: He did write kids, that was yeah, I've seen kids.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, kids is amazing.
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, kids is really good.
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_02: I do like that a lot.
• 58:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um but uh with this um he uh they go that they go to they so they go back to um they go back to Thailand like the mainland and everything and um Sal so Sal goes with uh Richard and they and she she immediately s they sleep together basically.
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_02: Straight away.
• 59:00
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah.
• 59:01
  SPEAKER_02: And she blackmails him about the map because he like they find out that so that he runs into his friends from from the beginning and uh they start they start saying, Oh, uh we we're going, we're coming, we're coming to the island, we've got the map and everything.
• 59:16
  SPEAKER_02: And he tell he gets like really angry, he's like, No, it was all a mistake, it's not real, and everything, and then but she's sitting there next to him, and um he um so she blackmails him about the map, basically.
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_02: She's like, I won't tell anyone but sleep with me, yeah, essentially.
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_02: And um once they go back to the island, uh he Francois immediately questions him and he lies.
• 59:43
  SPEAKER_02: He's like, Oh uh she confronts him, she's like, Oh, you uh what happened on the what happened there?
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_02: Did you did anything happen?
• 59:49
  SPEAKER_02: Oh no, no, nothing would ever happen with me and her.
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um I'm all I'm all for you and everything.
• 59:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um it really takes a turn at this point.
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_02: So this the the two guys get bitten by the shark, and this is really where it takes off.
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's horrible.
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_02: One of them immediately dies, it's horrible, um, and the other one has just like got a massive leg wound um being bitten and everything, and they like but I wrote down they they have a burial for the guy, and one of them is sitting on guitar playing a Bob Marley song because of course he's playing a Bob Marley song.
• 1:00:29
  SPEAKER_03: Because of course, because it's an island of douchebags, yeah, it's an island of like what else would he play?
• 1:00:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_02: It's like the the one set of songs that he they know on guitar that he's won the war, probably.
• 1:00:42
  SPEAKER_02: He just plays it for every occasion.
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't even fit with the with this with what what they're doing.
• 1:00:48
  SPEAKER_02: He plays redemption songs, yeah.
• 1:00:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um but then uh so Christo is one of the other guys, he he's in a lot of pain, and everyone's furious at him for being in a lot of pain.
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_02: It's like how dare he be in pain and ups and about this.
• 1:01:05
  SPEAKER_02: They're not so first of all, they're not allowing him to go anywhere.
• 1:01:09
  SPEAKER_02: What is he supposed to do?
• 1:01:12
  SPEAKER_03: Don't they say, like, oh you you can go to the island yourself?
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_03: And he's like, No, I can't, I can't go, I can't go.
• 1:01:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's an open thing.
• 1:01:21
  SPEAKER_02: He's like, How am I supposed to go?
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_02: He refuses to go and he refuses and but he wants someone to come to save it, like to come, like a doctor to come.
• 1:01:31
  SPEAKER_02: They're like, No, obviously you can't have a doctor.
• 1:01:34
  SPEAKER_02: So he's just there dying slowly, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:01:38
  SPEAKER_02: In pain.
• 1:01:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um and they ditch him in the wood, like they ditch him in the middle of the forest, and it's horrible, it's a horrible scene.
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_03: It's really brutal, and it's um that's when we see Richard kind of turn a little bit because he he doesn't seem that bothered, he just walks away.
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_02: No, he's like, oh, once you once like out of sight, out of mind, essentially, like once you're not seeing him, it's over.
• 1:02:03
  SPEAKER_02: So uh but but um uh the French guy just stays there with him, thankfully.
• 1:02:11
  SPEAKER_03: Um it's a great example then, I guess, of like of the brutality required to maintain an ideal setup.
• 1:02:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's never it's never gonna be a perfect uh utopia, is it?
• 1:02:25
  SPEAKER_02: Because you know it's it obviously essenti something's gonna go wrong at some point and you're gonna have to deal with it.
• 1:02:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um and you're not dealing with it in the right way.
• 1:02:35
  SPEAKER_02: You're like you you're dealing with it by just just trying to forget about it.
• 1:02:38
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:02:40
  SPEAKER_02: You can't do that.
• 1:02:42
  SPEAKER_02: You have to deal with things that you can't avoid the real world forever, essentially.
• 1:02:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:02:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um but it I think it's interesting, he he dreams of Daffy at this point.
• 1:02:51
  SPEAKER_02: Daffy?
• 1:02:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, yeah, yeah.
• 1:02:53
  SPEAKER_02: Daffy.
• 1:02:53
  SPEAKER_02: He dreams of him at this point, he dreams of like this situation.
• 1:02:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um he's dreaming of like the guns and everything, like, isn't he?
• 1:03:01
  SPEAKER_03: Where we're like um Yeah, what does he do?
• 1:03:05
  SPEAKER_03: Doesn't he dream yeah, he dream uh he dreams about Daffy being with him in the outskirts or something I can't remember.
• 1:03:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah um and yeah, and there's people on the so he like they discover there's people on the other side of the uh island waiting to come across, and Sal makes him wait uh at the top of the hill and everything for them.
• 1:03:28
  SPEAKER_02: And um this is when Francois finds out about him and Sal and like comes and confronts him and slaps him here's where it like really takes a turn because like he he starts imagining himself in a game at this point, and this is the horror that terrible scene.
• 1:03:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, when they make it look a bit like Crush Bandicoot, yeah, it's got very similar graphics.
• 1:03:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and he's like he's doing this like very stupid face the entire time that just I don't know, it really takes you out of it.
• 1:03:57
  SPEAKER_03: It really it really does.
• 1:03:58
  SPEAKER_03: Well, it feels like someone who doesn't understand computer games going oh let's the kids the kids love love computer games.
• 1:04:08
  SPEAKER_03: We're appealing to the MTV generation, let's put in a thing.
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, but it feels it feels massively dated now, but even looking at the like what it looks like there, I can imagine it felt dated.
• 1:04:20
  SPEAKER_03: It it did.
• 1:04:21
  SPEAKER_03: It was it was really it was just it was an odd stylistic choice, um for sure.
• 1:04:28
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, he says like the long the longer I'm away the less I miss the community.
• 1:04:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um but he's slowly he's slowly like losing his mind, um, or very quickly in fact, because you don't really know how long he's been away.
• 1:04:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um but in the scheme of in the scheme of the movie it's very quick, it's almost instant.
• 1:04:47
  SPEAKER_03: I guess I mean I guess it's not that long because he's watching these four other people try and plot their way to come over, so it can't be you know, we're talking about days, surely.
• 1:04:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, because he says like I think she says at one point it could be like up to two weeks or something, yeah.
• 1:05:04
  SPEAKER_02: Uh that they take to come over, and she's like, Yeah, well you'll have to wait that long, but you know, that's not that long, that's not long enough to go crazy.
• 1:05:12
  SPEAKER_02: No, it's not.
• 1:05:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um but yeah, he starts spying on the fire farmers and losing his mind.
• 1:05:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:05:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um he's like he's he's he imagines himself in like um as like some kind of in some kind of war almost.
• 1:05:27
  SPEAKER_02: It's like he takes he um he he take at one point he like takes a picks up a gun from one of them and he like takes a headband um and then uh he sets a trap for them as well.
• 1:05:43
  SPEAKER_02: Uh for I guess he's it what they're supposed to be for the uh people that are coming to the island, I guess.
• 1:05:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:05:49
  SPEAKER_02: I don't really know.
• 1:05:50
  SPEAKER_03: No, it's not really clear, is it?
• 1:05:51
  SPEAKER_02: I think he makes he just makes a trap.
• 1:05:53
  SPEAKER_03: Just makes a trap for fun.
• 1:05:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:05:55
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so the people make it to the island uh and the farmers immediately find them.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_02: They're so loud, they don't they know nothing to hide anything, but like why would they?
• 1:06:03
  SPEAKER_02: Because they don't know the bodies.
• 1:06:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:06:06
  SPEAKER_02: There's no reason for them.
• 1:06:07
  SPEAKER_02: But they um the farmers immediately kill one of them.
• 1:06:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:06:11
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, because they they start to try and apologize, but uh they kill them, and then they they s then they all start running and they start shooting them one by one.
• 1:06:19
  SPEAKER_02: Richard runs away and and he runs and hides in the bushes, and this is when uh one of them starts running towards him, but then he like makes that monkey noise.
• 1:06:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, yeah, which I think is great.
• 1:06:30
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I do think that's a lovely moment, it's a good look of like horror or sort of realisation.
• 1:06:36
  SPEAKER_02: Because he th he looks terrified at this point, it it it almost snaps him out of what's going on.
• 1:06:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:06:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so he he um he runs he starts running away and he leads one of them to the trap, uh one of the farmers, and the farmer like falls down into it and like sma breaks his legs or like impales himself.
• 1:06:53
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know, you can't see it.
• 1:06:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um he gets back and grabs François and and says uh and the the other guy and says oh we need to get out of here and and the guy says I can't leave this I can't leave the I can't leave him behind with his leg and everything, I can't leave him to die here.
• 1:07:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um and France and then and then they're like they uh they leave the tent except for Richard and Richard kills uh the guy, he kills Sisko, he like he suffocates him, yeah uh so the three of them can get out of there and it's it's a brutal moment.
• 1:07:31
  SPEAKER_03: It's a re it's a really brutal moment.
• 1:07:33
  SPEAKER_03: Um yeah, I don't really yeah, I think it's uh what I th what I I think I what I think the film has is not done right is it's sort of the the kind of I guess like the kind of internal antagonist in the film is like is like human savagery.
• 1:07:56
  SPEAKER_03: But actually that's not the thing that's most interesting, you know.
• 1:07:58
  SPEAKER_03: It's not I don't I think it's gone for it's tried to go for a sort of Lord of the Flies esque, which it to be very much so to be fair, that is kind of what the book was about.
• 1:08:06
  SPEAKER_03: But what's more interesting is more is the more human dysfunctions, you know what I mean?
• 1:08:12
  SPEAKER_03: The things yeah, clash, the the sort of the sort of contradictions in terms of what we want and our desires, and like all of that is way more interesting, way more fascinating than watching Leonardo DiCaprio hiss like a monkey in a crop field.
• 1:08:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, definitely.
• 1:08:28
  SPEAKER_02: Very much so.
• 1:08:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um but this this is pretty much the end of the movie though, like so like they the farmers find them all, uh they they hit him on the head and everything, uh drag them all back to everyone, um and the farmers like uh Sal and they say like the farmers say to them, you have to leave because we said we'd know more people on the island, you have to leave.
• 1:08:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um and Sal refuses to leave and she like snitches on Richard and she's like, Oh, Richard was the Richard, you were the one that uh gave the map out, weren't you?
• 1:09:02
  SPEAKER_02: And um and so the farmer like loads up a gun with one bullet and says, Um Sal, if you want to stay, uh kill Richard.
• 1:09:13
  SPEAKER_02: And this is the point where like everyone suddenly sees her for what she really is, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:09:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um because she fires the bullet, but there's nothing in there.
• 1:09:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um the the the farmer tricked essentially tricked her because he knew it would like ruin the whole thing.
• 1:09:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:09:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um and she fires no bullet and it's everyone just runs away and they all like leave her on her own because she refuses to leave.
• 1:09:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's I think it's that moment when, well, again, it's almost it's the cult thing again, where people go, Oh, we were just trying to have a bit of fun and live have a nice life with our friends.
• 1:09:48
  SPEAKER_03: We're not willing to kill to protect this thing.
• 1:09:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you know, it doesn't mean as much to us as it does to the people who are who were sort of at the helm of it.
• 1:09:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but I do wonder like kind of why it took that and not the shark stuff as well.
• 1:10:08
  SPEAKER_02: Because like the shark thing was like, oh, but we're letting this guy die as well.
• 1:10:12
  SPEAKER_03: I guess it's I guess it's a sort of question of what do you consider the natural order of things, or what do you consider as you know, if you I guess I guess if you go in the sea where there are sharks and you get bit, it's like well, yeah.
• 1:10:24
  SPEAKER_03: But if someone shoots you to protect an island, it's like well, that's not that's not necessarily a naturally as naturally occurring an event.
• 1:10:35
  SPEAKER_03: But yeah, it is interesting that they don't um I mean some of them do are horrified by it.
• 1:10:41
  SPEAKER_03: And I guess it does sort of create an unease in the and this is what the novel's really good at, is is that kind of is that slow burn unease that sort of spreads.
• 1:10:50
  SPEAKER_03: But it it obviously in the film it's it's not it's not focused on that.
• 1:10:55
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 1:10:55
  SPEAKER_03: I'm trying to I'm struggling to I'm struggling to think about what the film is actually focused on.
• 1:11:00
  SPEAKER_02: It's kind of that's the I think that's the issue.
• 1:11:02
  SPEAKER_02: It's kind of like all over the place.
• 1:11:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:11:04
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't actually have it doesn't say anything specific that it doesn't try to I don't know if it tries to say anything specific, it just kind of is there.
• 1:11:13
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:11:13
  SPEAKER_03: Um But I do think, having said that, it is it is it is not a 20% not a 20% film.
• 1:11:21
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 1:11:22
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's I think it's got a lot going for it.
• 1:11:24
  SPEAKER_03: I think there's a lot of there's a lot of good stuff in it.
• 1:11:27
  SPEAKER_02: Do you wanna do you wanna s uh speak?
• 1:11:29
  SPEAKER_02: So let me just like finish it.
• 1:11:30
  SPEAKER_02: We got like one more scene.
• 1:11:32
  SPEAKER_02: So they they um he goes, they everyone leaves the island, yeah, uh, and then it cuts to like down the line where he's like in Thailand still, I guess, but he goes to an in-tech cafe and he like um he opens his emails and he still he still got an email from his parents that say, Where are you?
• 1:11:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he doesn't open that, he opens the one from Francois that's like a a photo of all of them together.
• 1:11:51
  SPEAKER_03: And it's really beautiful, it's actually a really nice moment, I think.
• 1:11:55
  SPEAKER_03: And it's it's the lasting impression there is well the the photo represents the ideal still.
• 1:12:03
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you know, we're looking fondly at this thing of what it promised us.
• 1:12:07
  SPEAKER_03: Um so it's it's sort of it's sort of strangely uh strangely hopeful.
• 1:12:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:12:15
  SPEAKER_02: Do you want to do you want to talk then about um what in your opinion made it a good movie to you?
• 1:12:21
  SPEAKER_03: So I so I think well I think I think we've sort of we've sort of covered it as we've gone, but I think the I think yeah, I think it's really beautifully shot.
• 1:12:28
  SPEAKER_03: I think the soundtrack is great, I think I don't think the performances are that bad.
• 1:12:32
  SPEAKER_03: Um I think I don't think any performance is bad.
• 1:12:34
  SPEAKER_03: No, I think Tilda's Winton's really good, I think Matt and Joseph's really good.
• 1:12:38
  SPEAKER_03: Um yeah, Robert Carisle is is really good.
• 1:12:44
  SPEAKER_03: There's yeah, there's I mean, I think it does it does hit the sort of things that could could have made it interesting or more interesting.
• 1:12:52
  SPEAKER_03: It doesn't do it enough for me, but I I certainly don't think it's a 20% rated film by any stretch.
• 1:12:59
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's I think it's I think it's reasonably decent.
• 1:13:02
  SPEAKER_03: But yeah, my opinion of it is heavily clouded by the nostalgic feeling that it brings.
• 1:13:10
  SPEAKER_03: Like when I hear uh that Moby song that he did for it, like that makes me well up because it reminds me, it takes me, it transports me to a time that I've never lived.
• 1:13:22
  SPEAKER_03: It takes it transports me to a nostalgia for the idea of this life.
• 1:13:28
  SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
• 1:13:29
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not thinking about, you know, I'm not I'm not thinking about I'm not looking back nostalgically at the time when I watched the beach on VHS, but I'm thinking about what it promised me at that time.
• 1:13:41
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know, it's it's it's really yeah, it's so it's very hard for me to separate what you're saying.
• 1:13:52
  SPEAKER_03: Really.
• 1:13:54
  SPEAKER_03: But I refuse to see it.
• 1:13:58
  SPEAKER_03: No, it's it's a great movie.
• 1:14:00
  SPEAKER_03: It's a great movie.
• 1:14:01
  SPEAKER_03: It's like okay, it's not it's not it's not a 20% on Rotten Tomatoes kind of film, it's more like a 30%, but my nest but my nostalgia for what life that film promised whacks it up to a solid 99.
• 1:14:13
  SPEAKER_02: Oh wow, yeah.
• 1:14:15
  SPEAKER_02: Well great.
• 1:14:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um okay, so let's move on to the final segment then, which is um the reverse of this.
• 1:14:22
  SPEAKER_02: Do you have a movie that you that's well reviewed that you think is actually a bad movie?
• 1:14:29
  SPEAKER_03: Not really, but there is a film that I'm fascinated by, which is uh Man on the Moon, the Andy Kaufman biopic that Jim Carrey was in.
• 1:14:41
  SPEAKER_03: Because I don't think it's that good a film.
• 1:14:43
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's I think it's alright, and I think it has a lot of like, but it's very workman-like, it doesn't really do anything exciting, and and this isn't the director's fault, uh, not really the fault of anyone apart from Jim Carrey and his kind of method acting approach to it, because I think it ruined the film.
• 1:15:03
  SPEAKER_03: I think all of his offset shenanigans or off-camera shenanigans really spoiled it because he was doing Andy Kaufman the whole time.
• 1:15:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:15:13
  SPEAKER_03: But Andy Kaufman as the character, as the performer Andy Kaufman and not the person.
• 1:15:19
  SPEAKER_03: So when it comes to it, kind of works for the first sort of half of the film, but when we start getting into the emotional stuff, when we start trying to see more of Andy Kaufman, I think the performance doesn't quite match what is demanding of you know what or what's demanded of it, because he's still in prankster Andy Kaufman mode the whole time.
• 1:15:38
  SPEAKER_03: Um so you got you never really get to understand the man, and so it it's a really good testament to uh or a really good argument for just how bullshit I think method acting is, you know, or the idea that the idea that you have to be a prick off you know off camera in order to kind of generate an atmosphere.
• 1:15:57
  SPEAKER_03: People just turn up, it's a job, just turn up, do it, and go home.
• 1:16:00
  SPEAKER_03: Don't piss the makeup ladies off for no reason.
• 1:16:03
  SPEAKER_02: Do you think it came also came out of like people not really knowing the true Andy Kaufman?
• 1:16:10
  SPEAKER_02: Uh yeah, maybe to them to the for the most part.
• 1:16:13
  SPEAKER_02: So all he had to kind of go off into he didn't need to method act this, but like to to all he had to go off for the method acting was the Prankster version of him.
• 1:16:21
  SPEAKER_03: Well, that's for me, that's what makes it uh a biopic of him really interesting, potentially, is the point where you go where you go, well, at what point during the telling of a person's story do we do we go off into fantasy or what we've been told or what you know that that is way more interesting, and Andy Kaufman is a good is a good is a good jumping off point to explore those kind of things because he was you know he was a sort of professional troll in a in a way.
• 1:16:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, the real the real Andy Kaufman was constantly kind of being being queried.
• 1:16:51
  SPEAKER_03: So for me, it's a missed opportunity as a film, and I think Jim Carrey's approach to it actually kind of didn't spoil it necessarily, but it certainly didn't allow didn't elevate it beyond just a sort of reasonably decent film.
• 1:17:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think it's like a perfectly fine movie.
• 1:17:08
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think it's anything amazing though, that it could have been with with that character with Andy Calvin, who's such an interesting person.
• 1:17:13
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it's like it's like personality.
• 1:17:15
  SPEAKER_03: Well, it's like why wouldn't you approach a film about him?
• 1:17:19
  SPEAKER_03: Or why wouldn't you approach a film in the same subversive way as he approached his act?
• 1:17:24
  SPEAKER_03: Like, why wouldn't you allow that to inform the way that you tell his life story?
• 1:17:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I think everyone involved with that definitely could have done that as well.
• 1:17:34
  SPEAKER_02: They're not they're not not incapable of doing that.
• 1:17:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally.
• 1:17:40
  SPEAKER_03: Well, it's the the director that they got, what's his name?
• 1:17:42
  SPEAKER_03: Is it Milos Forman?
• 1:17:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and he's he what did he make?
• 1:17:46
  SPEAKER_03: Did he make like one for the cooker's nest and stuff?
• 1:17:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, he made one for the cookers' nest.
• 1:17:49
  SPEAKER_03: So they're very like, you know, he's not necessarily known for being experimental or whatever.
• 1:17:55
  SPEAKER_03: So he was making a very dry film, which is fine, but yeah.
• 1:18:01
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 1:18:02
  SPEAKER_02: I think, yeah.
• 1:18:03
  SPEAKER_02: It's yeah, it's a perfectly fine movie.
• 1:18:05
  SPEAKER_02: I don't, yeah, I I see why you don't love it though.
• 1:18:09
  SPEAKER_03: I just think I I think it's it's not necessarily a technically bad film, but I I feel like it's such a wasted opportunity and such a and such a and such a needlessly provocative performance approach from Jim Carrey that it kind of for me it it it demotes it into bad territory.
• 1:18:27
  SPEAKER_02: No, I get that.
• 1:18:28
  SPEAKER_02: I I completely get that as well, and I I don't disagree with that at all.
• 1:18:33
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, well uh this has been great.
• 1:18:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um thanks so much for doing this.
• 1:18:38
  SPEAKER_02: How um let's uh let's talk about plugs.
• 1:18:41
  SPEAKER_02: Uh have you got anything you want to plug at the moment?
• 1:18:43
  SPEAKER_03: Um not really.
• 1:18:45
  SPEAKER_03: I mean I I I don't really know I don't I don't know if if if the arts will be even be alive when this when this goes out, but um well how can we find you online at least?
• 1:18:56
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm on I'm on Twitter at at geordbrooks, B-R-W-O-K-E-S.
• 1:19:01
  SPEAKER_03: Um I'm gonna do I did a I did a live stream of one of my shows recently and then and then I did a sort of commentary over the top of it.
• 1:19:10
  SPEAKER_03: So I talked about the the building of the show and the kind of you know the thinking behind it.
• 1:19:14
  SPEAKER_03: That that seemed to go down quite well.
• 1:19:16
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm gonna I'm gonna maybe do that again with other shows.
• 1:19:19
  SPEAKER_03: So that might be the next thing that I'm sort of focusing on is is is live streaming my previous shows and talking about them.
• 1:19:25
  SPEAKER_02: Oh cool.
• 1:19:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, thanks so much for doing this though.
• 1:19:26
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks for having me.
• 1:19:27
  SPEAKER_03: What what a treat.
• 1:19:28
  SPEAKER_03: It was nice to delve into this film.
• 1:19:30
  SPEAKER_02: That's the end of the podcast.
• 1:19:31
  SPEAKER_02: You can find me on Twitter with the username at YCove or at YannisCove on Instagram.
• 1:19:37
  SPEAKER_02: Please remember to rate and review us on iTunes if you enjoyed this so I can end up making more.
• 1:19:41
  SPEAKER_02: And I'll see you next week for more movies that critics got wrong.