The Castaways of Turtle Island

Having set his first two features on seaside holidays, Jacques Rozier used the third, THE CASTAWAYS OF TURTLE ISLAND, to mock the tourist industry and the “going native” movement that was then increasing in popularity among Western vacationers. Things quickly go south when travel agents Jean-Arthur (Pierre Richard) and Joël (Maurice Risch) offer a fend-for-yourself getaway on a deserted island, with their agency making them accompany clients through deep jungle and across barely charted waters to reach a destination that could give Robinson Crusoe a run for his money. Joël enlists younger brother Bernard (Jacques Villeret) to go in his place, but Jean-Arthur isn’t so lucky, and soon devolves into a semimad purist who will settle for nothing less than the ultimate in survivalist adventure; meanwhile, a motley crew of sightseers becomes divided over how real this shipwreck holiday should be. Far ahead of its time in its satirical targets and its mixing of disparate narrative tones, TURTLE ISLAND is a hilarious comic send-up that could only have emerged from Rozier’s puckish imagination.