Castaway | 1986
- Locations |
- the Seychelles;
- London
- DIRECTOR |
- Nicolas Roeg
Not to be confused with the similarly-titled Robert Zemeckis-Tom Hanks film Cast Away, Nicolas Roeg’s movie is based on the true story of Gerald Kingsland (Oliver Reed), who advertised for a ‘beautiful woman’ to retire with him to a South Seas island. Lucy Irvine (Amanda Donohoe) replied. She really should have known better.
Unusually, the film was shot in sequence, around London and in the Seychelle Islands in the Indian Ocean.
Mundanely, Irvine initially works in the tax office at Charles House, High Street Kensington, West London, which is presumably why island life holds such appeal.
What turns out to be a less-than-idyllic paradise was filmed on the islands of Praslin, Cousine and La Digue in the Seychelles, an archipelago of 115 islands of varying size, and mostly uninhabited, off the East African coast.
Since the 1970s, they’ve become a major luxury tourist getaway. Praslin is the second-largest island of the Seychelles, blessed with such gorgeous beaches as Anse Lazio and Anse Georgette.
La Digue, the fourth largest island, lies to the east, and Cousine Island to the west. Cousine is a nature reserve protected under Seychelles law.