All of the Arts, Forgotten Places 10 Movies Shot in Very Remote Locations December 10, 2017 by museumoflost Some film directors hear it; the call of the wild. They just have to get out of the studio, and into the wilderness. Here are ten films that were shot in the remotest locations possible. ALL of the ARTS FORGOTTEN PLACES <section> <h2>10 Movies Shot in Remote Locations</h2> <div>Click <b>Start </b>to open the list.</div> </section> <section> <h2>'Touching the Void' - SIULA GRANDE, PERU</h2> <div>In 1985, British climbers Joe Simpson and Simon Yates set out to conquer the imposing west face of Siula Grande, high in the Peruvian Andes. While they made the summit, disaster befell them on the way down; in terrible weather, Simpson fell and broke his leg, and subsequently tumbled over a cliff edge. Unable to pull his friend back up, Yates eventually cut the rope connecting them, with Simpson plummeting to his death... or so everyone thought, until he crawled back into base camp several days later, having miraculously survived the fall. In 2003, Scottish director Kevin MacDonald returned to the isolated spot to recreate the events for a movie, bringing the real life Simpson and Yates with him as advisers. To get to base camp required a 12 hour bus ride from Lima, and then several days march up mountain tracks, with the film equipment spread across an army of 70 donkeys. Several scenes were shot as high as 18 000 feet, with the tiny six man film crew guided up a sheer glaciers by local guides, and MacDonald directing at times while suspended from the cliff face. </div> </section> <section> <h3>'Aguirre: Wrath of God' - MACHU PICCHU & THE AMAZON</h3> <div>Werner Herzog's first fictional feature is one of the great off-grid filming efforts. With a small budget and an even smaller crew, the fearless 30 year old plunged into the remote Amazon to tell the story of a 16th century conquistador (played by Klaus Kinski), driven insane by gold fever. As well as the famed Incan city of Machu Picchu (above), Herzog shot scenes on the remote Nanay river, and in the awe inspiring 'Sacred Valley' of Urubamba. The legendary shoot effectively mirrored the story they were filming; with the crew hacking through the jungle with machetes, rafting down white water rapids, and camping rough in the jungle on meager rations, while director and star threatened to kill each other. Herzog would return to the Amazon to shoot the more lavishly budgeted 'Fitzcarraldo', an equally wild production, but nothing could top the gumption of his first step into the unknown. </div> </section> <section> <h3>'Rapa Nui' - EASTER ISLAND</h3> <div>An unlikely-seeming follower of the trail blazed by Herzog, easy going Texan film maker Kevin Reynolds also felt the pull of South America. A committed environmentalist, after the commercial success of 1991's 'Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves', Reynolds wanted to tell a story that reflected his beliefs. For a subject he took the Indigenous people of Easter Island, whose internal conflicts had helped destroy the island's natural environment. Setting himself an enormous challenge, Reynolds took a small crew to Easter Island, and so became the first Western film maker to shoot on one of the world's most remote locations (the tiny island is about 2 200 km from mainland Chile). With an amateur cast of non actors, and isolated both from outside interference and any source of help, Reynolds was quickly in over his head. The harshness of the landscape, and the inexperience of all involved, quickly overwhelmed the simple story. 'The crew went a bit mad and I got lost,' Reynolds reflected in a subsequent interview. 'I was never able to tell the story I had in mind.'</div> </section> <section> <h3>'Greed' - DEATH VALLEY, CALIFORNIA</h3> <div>Erich von Stroheim's 'Greed' was a landmark of silent cinema for it's unflinching look at the dark side of human nature. The 1924 film also pushed the boundaries in another way; at a time when films were shot as quickly as possible on sound stages, von Stroheim took the production on location to Death Valley, to shoot the climactic scenes. It would prove a formidable challenge. With temperatures hovering around 55 degrees during the day, (Death Valley is one of the hottest places on earth), 14 members of the crew were hospitalised with heat exhaustion, and lead actor Jean Hersholt spent a week there, once filming was complete. He later called the experience 'The most terrible any of us had gone through.' Those that survived the heat had to contend with scorpions, tarantulas, poisonous snakes, and primitive conditions at a makeshift camp; Death Valley at the time had no hotels, running water, or even paved roads. The finished scenes are among the most famous in cinema history, although the film was taken out of von Stroheim's hands, and re-cut against his wishes.</div> </section> <section> <h3>'Nanook of the North' - INUKJUAK, QUEBEC</h3> <div>Another silent film that pushed the boundaries was Robert J. Flaherty's docu-drama 'Nanook of the North': the reputedly true story of an Inuit family, living in the harsh wilderness of northern Canada. A former mining surveyor with a taste for adventure, Flaherty had secured private financing for the movie, despite his inexperience as a film maker. To get to the remote outpost of Inukjuak - then a tiny fur trading station called 'Port Harrison' - Flaherty took the train to the end of the line in Ontario, then traveled by canoe up the Moose River, and finally by steamer ship for the final leg. Working alone, using a small Bell & Howell camera and a portable film printing machine, Flaherty spent nearly 12 months filming a local Inuit family, capturing scenes of them fishing, hunting walrus, and building a new igloo. While the film was riotously received when it premiered in 1922, and is still considered a pioneering and much imitated documentary, subsequent investigation has shown that Flaherty probably staged many of the film's iconic scenes. While the film presents Inuits as still living a traditional lifestyle, ignorant of European ways, by the 1920's they were using rifles for hunting, and trading furs for tobacco and other western goods.</div> </section> <section> <h3>'How I Ended This Summer' - VALKARKAI POLAR STATION, CHUTOTKA, RUSSIA</h3> <div>Russian director Alexei Popogrebsky set out to find the remotest possible location to set his 2010 drama, 'How I Ended This Summer.' The director investigated a number of isolated spots in Siberia, before settling on Valkarkai; a real Russian weather station more than 5 000 km from Moscow, and reached via a 15 hour plane and snow cat ride. The story involves two men left to man a fictional weather station during the bleak winter months, with the solitude and boredom leading to escalating conflict. Something the small film crew could probably identify with; 'We all went a little nuts,' the director would later comment, describing being disconnected from the outside world during the three month shoot. Popogrebsky himself would survive a face-to-face encounter with a wild polar bear, eventually chasing it away with burning torches (an incident that was later slipped into the movie).</div> </section> <section> <h3>'Walkabout' - ARNHEM LAND and LAKE EYRE</h3> <div>At the opposite end of the spectrum, conditions wise, Nicholas Roeg bought a small film crew to the Australian outback in 1970 to shoot his first feature, 'Walkabout.' The story of two British school children who become stranded in the desert, and are rescued by a local Indigenous man (David Gulpilil, also in his first film), Roeg sought out remote locations across the Northern Territory and South Australia. These included Lake Eyre - a giant, annual oasis in the Simpson Desert - and the striking red sandy plains of the Indigenous tribal areas of Arnhem Land. None of these spots were serviced by paved roads, and filming conditions were basic; lead actress Jenny Agutter remembers scorching hot days, sleeping on the ground, clouds of flying ants, and everyone drinking heavily. Her co-star Luc Roeg, the director's son, later said, 'Coming home from Australia everything felt a bit alien. We'd all gone feral.'</div> </section> <section> <h3>'The English Patient' - THE CAVE OF SWIMMERS, EGYPT</h3> <div>Anthony Minghella's sprawling adaptation of 'The English Patient' featured several spectacular locations; in Syria and Italy and the Tunisian desert (not far from where Star Wars was filmed). But the pick is undoubtedly the 'Cave of Swimmers', an extremely remote spot in Egypt's south western desert, near the border with Syria. The cave was discovered in 1933 by Laszlo Almasy, whose life 'The English Patient' is loosely based on, and takes its name from the 8 000 year old <a href="http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/africa/gilf_kebir_cave_of_swimmers/index.php" target="_blank">rock paintings</a> inside, some of which seem to show people swimming. The rough terrain makes the cave inaccessible to vehicles, and so the cast and crew trekked to the spot on foot, with a team of 25 donkeys carrying their equipment. The film was a huge success and the desert scenery spectacular, quite an achievement considering the inexperience of the director; 'I had never been to a desert before, or even seen a sand dune,' Minghella later said. </div> </section> <section> <h3>'The Tree of Life' - NAMAFJALL GEOTHERMAL AREA, ICELAND</h3> <div>Terrance Malick's mind-expanding 'The Tree of Life' was one of the most convoluted shoots in film history. While the central section of the film, the coming of age sequences featuring Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain, were shot in and around Waco, Texas, these are book-ended by an eye-popping montage of shots from far flung locations. Small teams of production crew fanned out to these spots - in Utah, in California, in Italy and France and Africa - to capture footage that was later assembled by Malick, and his crack DoP Emmanuel Lubezki. One of the most spectacular locations used was the Namafjall Geothermal Area, in the north eastern corner of Iceland. This plateau, ringed by volcanic mountains, is a patchwork of glaciers, tundra, boiling water and mud pots, heated naturally by molten rock not far below the surface. Shooting on 35mm and IMAX, and with a helicopter mounted steadicam, proved a significant challenge in the rough, frigid location; 'It was the most difficult thing I have ever done,' cameraman Erik Brown later commented.</div> </section> <section> <h3>'Larwence of Arabia' - WADI RUM, JORDAN</h3> <div>Unlike some of the directors on this list, British legend David Lean was not someone to shoot in guerrilla style with a minimal crew, even far from home. So when Lean decided to film some of the key scenes for 'Lawrence of Arabia' exactly where they happened, in the southern desert of Jordan, there was no mistaking that a big film production was in town. Lean descended on Wadi Rum, a vibrant red desert a half day's drive from Aqaba, with his principal cast, several 70mm cameras, 300 Bedouin extras, and an entourage of 400 crew. The location was 150km from the nearest supply of drinking water, and so was serviced by an enormous, and ongoing, caravan of supply vehicles. Lean, Peter O'Toole and Omar Sharif each brought their own butlers, and personal chefs, and the two actors were flown in and out of Cairo and Amman every few days, to rest and re-cooperate. The stunning location was used to film Lawrence's arrival in the desert, and his famous first encounter with Sharif (when Sharif shoots his guide). But the outsize production burnt through an enormous amount of cash in such a remote spot, and after a few months the shoot relocated to Spain. </div> </section> <p></p> More MUSEUM OF LOST Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)Like this:Like Loading... Related Post navigation Foy’s Rooftop Funpark10 Famous Musicians Who Acted in One Movie