Where is papillon set

Here's the trailer:. Although it was based on a bestselling book, and although the book had received rave reviews, the film did not earn universal praise when it appeared and still seems hokey at times today. McQueen and his co-star, Dustin Hoffman, sought and received a king's ransom for their roles—the film was the most expensive of its time.

A contemporaneous Los Angeles Times reviewer complained of "problems of emphasis and tone. Schaffner, of Patton fame, conceded that he "had to take certain liberties with" the book to "construct a viable film. If you saw the film when it first appeared, or saw it for the first time 20 years ago on television, no doubt one of your first reactions was to note the dated nature of the content.

Thank goodness, you might have said decades ago, this inhumane treatment of prisoners, this sadistic approach to punishment, happened in another time the s and in another place colonial France. It could never happen here! But not today. Today if you watch Papillon —for the first or the th time—you are immediately struck by the similarities between the way French colonial authorities mistreated prisoners a century ago and the way U.

In fact, tragically, you can make a reasonable argument that American prisoners today in many respects are treated worse than were the prisoners highlighted in the movie. What a long, strange descent into brutality it's been. The film starts off with a scene in France in which an official explains to a group of assembled prisoners that they are to be sent to the penal colony, the "property of the penal administration of French Guiana," never to return.

France has rid herself of you altogether. Forget France. On the trip, Dega seeks and receives protection from Papillon and they become friends. When Papillon thwarts an attempt on Dega's life during transport, he is restrained in the same four-point restraints that prison officials in both federal and facilities use today on inmates who have acted out—McQueen's character is shackled on his stomach by his ankles with his hands behind his back and forced to eat out of a bowl with his face like a dog.

This happens today at the federal prison in Florence, Colorado, for example, even to inmates who have been diagnosed as mentally ill. When the prisoners arrive on the island, they are collected together in a large compound and given a speech by the prison director. Of course, more serious offenses are dealt with in this fashion.

Immediately, Papillon and Dega make plans to escape. They fail over and over again, which is the point of the movie but somehow only McQueen's character is ever sent to solitary confinement.

When he arrives, the prison chief gives him a speech that no prison official would or could publicly give today—political correctness being what it is even within the nation's prison systems—but which nonetheless distills the essence of what America's use of solitary confinement is intended to achieve in our own time. From the movie:. The rule here is total silence. We make no pretense of rehabilitation here. We're not priests, we're processors.

A meatpacker processes live animals into edible ones. We process dangerous men into harmless ones. This we accomplish by breaking you. To most, the year-round sunshine and relaxed atmosphere makes them the perfect holiday destination, rather than the ideal setting for a grim prison colony drama.

But authorities in the Canary Islands appear only too happy to see them transformed into the location for a remake of the classic film Papillon to attract Hollywood glamour - and cash. Thirty-five years after the classic, in which Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman starred in the story of two men struggling to escape from a prison island, filming on a remake is to begin next year in the Canary Islands. Branko Lustig, the Los Angeles producer behind Schindler's List and Gladiator, is to shoot the new version of the film, which was nominated for Oscars for the on-screen chemistry between its stars.

Until now the islands have been more popular with holiday or documentary film-makers. Writing in his blog, he said: "The volcanic origin of the island makes being there an emotional interior journey.

The film dutifully hits the highlights of the escape attempts. The characters themselves are vagaries, types, not quite three-dimensional people.

This movie, directed and starring Europeans, is a bit better and certainly more violent and sexually graphic than the version with Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman. Like that movie, it becomes wearying after a while. People gathered along Olympic Avenue in Arlington to celebrate veterans. Sean Reich teaches students, staff and Ellen DeGeneres how to halve apples with bare hands. The giant red dog, created in CGI of course, fails to make a connection with audiences in this superficial outing.