Cast Away

The funny thing about being stranded on a desert island is that it polarises reality. Things go from being normal, everyday stuff of the blah kind to being absolutely horrible (the event that makes the person be stranded in the first place - in this case, a plane crash) and then absolutely awesome (the person is in a place probably none of his friends will ever get to experience in the same way he has). It's not surprising that the film Cast Away starring Tom Hanks grossed nearly half a billion dollars at the box office. At least, not to me.

It's one of those films that you can go back and watch again and again and never seem to get sick of. It's what I call philosophically rich, because each time you watch it you discover something new; not about the screenplay but about yourself. About human nature and the world.

The film is a love story at its most basic level. Man is about to propose to the woman he loves but has to leave on a plane for his work as a FedEx analyst. Cue tragedy. He winds up on a rocky, isolated, totally deserted island in the middle of the Pacific with no hope of getting away on his own, thanks to the suicidal reef chain which completely surrounds the island. Meanwhile, his true love, back home in Memphis, USA, believes she has lost him forever.

From the beginning, you don't expect it to be a fairytale of any sort. It's a relief, in our Know-it-All age, actually, that the movie is never set up romantically but in fact reeks of reality. And that reality imparts a peace and a space in which to think. You can really put yourself in the poor man's shoes as he tries to break open his first coconut and light his first fire. Things most of us have never had to do before. He contends with Nature for his most basic needs, while trying not to lose his sanity to the utter vacuum of loneliness that is forced upon him.

In the middle of this One Man Land is the tiny feeling, like a hope, that maybe he is not alone. It is the hope of being reunited with his loved ones, of being a human among humans again. This is what is kept alive in his bruised body when he gazes at the picture of his pretty fiancée (Helen Hunt) and transforms a volleyball into the head of a person he can have intimate fireside chats with. And Tom Hanks can still, even in a nightmarish situation, make a harmony of comedy out of the littlest actions. He takes all that we are in today's world and successfully strands it on a beach in the middle of nowhere. From his stumblings on the seashore as he goes after shipwrecked FedEx packages, to his use of an ice skate to chop his trousers into shorts, to the beautifully inarticulate way he hollers at the wind after gashing his palm in an unsuccessful fire-starting attempt. And I haven't even mentioned the most noteworthy aspects (the ones you really can't be eating when you watch them; just biting down on something).

Aside from the great story, this film parades a series of wonderful images through our minds. There is so much packed into every tiny scene. For instance, when Hank's character Jack Noland, hits a breakthrough when starting his first fire, he is stunned and actually stops mid-action to look, almost questioningly, at his 'mate' volleyball, whom he calls 'Wilson'. Almost as if he expects the volleyball to come alive and shout, "Surprise! It was me that did it!" At the summit of the island, his failed attempt to test-drive a self-hanging with a heavy tree trunk turns to triumph when later, realising he needs the extra rope to build his raft, he sets the trunk - in the shape of a man with arms outstretched in love or worship - down on the summit in full view of the sea and anyone travelling on it.

Robert Zemeckis (director) has found a way to create an intimate dialogue between the character and the audience. When we see Jack back home in civilisation and he picks up one of those snazzy lighters you use for the stove, and repeatedly presses the trigger to ignite and re-ignite it and watches the perfect flame dance into existence, we, the audience, are in his thoughts and heart. We are with him as he travels in his mind from his one world of almost unconscious convenience and privilege, to the beautiful but savage world where he bleeds, blisters and hungers for hours to light his first fire on that desolate island. We understand his feelings and sense that wrenching feeling that comes from being torn from one reality to another with all meaning and context distorted like the particles in some Einsteinian cosmic phenomenon.

A man goes from being a servant of his beeper and his watch, to being ruled by the sun, the tides, the wind and the primary forces of nature. You can't help feeling excitement at his triumphs and victories as he learns more about the world and how to cohabit with his surroundings in a sustainable manner. And in that excitement there is also a tinge of sadness, because who among us will ever have such a life-changing and enlightening experience? Sure, we could all visit that little rocky island in Fiji, but it would be as tourists or members of a community that would sustain us. How many people today actually go out and learn things on their own? How many people meet a whale face-to-face and glance into its eyes while all alone in the middle of the open sea, and sensing the chances of survival are not much better, if not much worse, than those of imminent death?

Cast Away is a fantastic movie because it makes us think about those questions. It interrogates what happens to a person's perception and understanding when they have had an experience very few people have. It is a movie about reality and a movie about possible reality.