Often while watching this movie I asked myself, How would filmmakers tackle this or that scene today, 25 years later? And while I am certainly not going to applaud 'The Blue Lagoon' as an overlooked masterpiece, CERTAINLY not!, it is still a far cry better than the standard teenage soft-porn that is on offer today.
Basically, 'The Blue Lagoon' is about two horny teenagers finding their own path towards sexual fulfillment and adulthood, and it strives to point the way for its multitudes of teenage audiences with some dignity and even fearlessness. Today footage of completely naked infants as well as pre-teens and teens would simply never be realized or even permitted in mainstream OR art cinema, God forbid! Brooke Shields' frank alluding to Christopher Atkins' masturbatory habits could, in a movie today, only be filmed amidst a sea of giggles, whereas in 1980 they did it very deadpan and honestly.
The film is full of quite touching scenes and gently, if not exactly marvelously acted. I liked Atkins' prayer that the sick Shields be saved, and he doesn't remember how a prayer goes: "Our Father who art in Heaven ... Kingdom come ... Liberty and justice for all. Amen". They don't lead terribly eventful lives on that desert island, but their everyday rituals are beautifully filmed, and the underwater sequences are memorable.
Basically, 'The Blue Lagoon' is about two horny teenagers finding their own path towards sexual fulfillment and adulthood, and it strives to point the way for its multitudes of teenage audiences with some dignity and even fearlessness. Today footage of completely naked infants as well as pre-teens and teens would simply never be realized or even permitted in mainstream OR art cinema, God forbid! Brooke Shields' frank alluding to Christopher Atkins' masturbatory habits could, in a movie today, only be filmed amidst a sea of giggles, whereas in 1980 they did it very deadpan and honestly.
The film is full of quite touching scenes and gently, if not exactly marvelously acted. I liked Atkins' prayer that the sick Shields be saved, and he doesn't remember how a prayer goes: "Our Father who art in Heaven ... Kingdom come ... Liberty and justice for all. Amen". They don't lead terribly eventful lives on that desert island, but their everyday rituals are beautifully filmed, and the underwater sequences are memorable.