film directed by Danny Boyle
and based on the 1996 novel of the same name
by Alex Garland
, which was adapted for the film by John Hodge. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio
and features Tilda Swinton
, Robert Carlyle
, Virginie Ledoyen
and Guillaume Canet
. It was filmed on the Thai
island Koh Phi Phi.
Richard (Leonardo DiCaprio
), a young American backpacker in Thailand
, goes to Southeast Asia
with the intention of experiencing something radically different from his familiar life.
Richard, this is just the kind of pretentious bullshit that Americans always say to French girls so they can sleep with them.
No offence an' all, but, you're fucked in the head, right?
My name is Richard. So what else do you need to know? Stuff about my family, or where I'm from? None of that matters. Not once you cross the ocean and cut yourself loose, looking for something more beautiful, something more exciting and yes, I admit, something more dangerous. So after eighteen hours in the back of an airplane, three dumb movies, two plastic meals, six beers and absolutely no sleep, I finally touch down; in Bangkok.
And me, I still believe in paradise. But now at least I know it's not some place you can look for, 'cause it's not where you go. It's how you feel for a moment in your life when you're a part of something, and if you find that moment... it lasts forever...
Trust me, it's paradise. This is where the hungry come to feed. For mine is a generation that circles the globe and searches for something we haven't tried before. So never refuse an invitation, never resist the unfamiliar, never fail to be polite and never outstay the welcome. Just keep your mind open and suck in the experience. And if it hurts, you know what? It's probably worth it.
I had nothing left to offer but pure reflex. Pure reflex and mankind's basic drive for survival, that somehow shouts, "NO - I WILL NOT DIE TODAY!"
The only downer is, everyone's got the same idea. We all travel thousands of miles just to watch TV and check in to somewhere with all the comforts of home, and you gotta ask yourself, what is the point of that?
I just feel like everyone tries to do something different, but you always wind up doing the same damn thing.
I told myself spreading news was part of a traveller's nature, but if I was being completely honest, I was just like everybody else: shit-scared of the great unknown. Desperate to take a little piece of home with me.
When you develop an infatuation for someone you always find a reason to believe that this is exactly the person for you. It doesn't need to be a good reason. Taking photographs of the night sky, for example. Now, in the long run, that's just the kind of dumb, irritating habit that would cause you to split up. But in the haze of infatuation, it's just what you've been searching for all these years.