Upamanyu Biswas
Directed by Aaron Nee and Adam Nee, ‘The Lost City‘ tells a whimsical tale of adventure through the eyes of a novelist named Loretta Sage. After years of writing adventure novels, Sage experiences one herself after she is kidnapped by a media mogul, Abigial Fairfax, to help track down the whereabouts of an elusive treasure she researched for one of her novels. Subsequently, she and her captor travel to the estimated treasure location in the Atlantic Ocean, a small island called Isla Hundida. It sets the stakes for an epic quest of retrieval and recovery as the protagonist seeks to find her bearings in an unknown land where the scenic beauty is deceiving as compared to the dangers that await in its untamed wilds.
Isla Hundida is a Fictional Island With Vague Ties to Reality
Isla Hundida in ‘The Lost City’ is a fictional island crafted by writers Aaron Nee, Adam Nee, Oren Uziel, and Dana Fox. It is the primary setting where most of the adventure quest in the movie takes place after the protagonist, Loretta Sage, is whisked away from her peaceful existence by billionaire Abigail Fairfax. Subsequently, the novelist must figure out the clues to the hidden location of the treasure King Kalaman’s wife had in store. While the island is a creation of the filmmakers, most of it was brought to life in specific locations in the Dominican Republic. To that end, there are real-life references for the different areas shown in the movie, specifically relating to the island’s overall geography.
Filming for a lot of the sequences on the island took place at the Los Haitises National Park, which offers a variety of breathtaking locales that perfectly mirror the tropical vibe essential to Isla Hundida. Additionally, shooting for the waterfall scene where Loretta finds the first clue to the treasure’s location was undertaken at the Salto Socoa Waterfall, which is situated inside the premises of the National Park. Other prominent filming sites that are featured in the movie are the town of Samana, the Casa de Campo complex, and Coson Beach, among others. Therefore, the filmmakers opted for diverse natural locations when building the fictional island from scratch. Some scenes also required the aid of a studio environment provided by the Pinewood Dominican Republic Studios, which has since been renamed.
In conclusion, the fantasy treasure island offers a believable reality because of the extensive production work done by the film crew and cast in bringing it to life through the contextual details. Even though the island does not exist, the groundedness of the real-life settings and adherence to natural locations help layer its existence with a sense of grit and wilderness that cannot be replicated through other methods. However, in some aspects, CGI was utilized by the production team to weave everything together and also provide some more striking visuals, specifically through the volcano on display. Therefore, its prominence and reality feel more tangible despite the fact that it has no connections to any real-world locations.
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