FOXTROT

UK/Mexico, 1976, 91 minutes, Colour.
Peter O’ Toole, Charlotte Rampling, Max von Sydow, Jorge Luke, Claudio Brook, Helena Rojo.
Directed by Arturo Ripstein.

Foxtrot is a strange film. Made thirty years after the end of World War Two, it is an allegory about the war and Europe. Peter O’ Toole plays a wealthy European who, with his wife Julia, played by Charlotte Rampling (at the period in which she appeared in The Night Porter) takes some friends on a boat to a remote island to live out the war. When they are stranded on the islnd, violence breaks out – perhaps, something of an adult Lord of the Flies.

The leads are very strong with Max von Sydow as Larsen, the seeming villain of the piece, who is being manipulated by others.

The film is an allegory of the death of pre-World War Two Europe, the clash of the classes, privilege and the rich, the rebellion of ordinary people – and the ensuing violence.

The film was directed by Mexico Arturo Ripstein. He has had a long career in his native Mexico with such films as Crimson, No One Writes to the Colonel.

1. The entertainment value of the film, message? The purpose?

2. The intent of the film? Public allegory? Portrait of Europe in the 20th century? Portrait of the classes? Portrait of individuals, of society? The impact of the film in entertainment terms, in message terms? The blending of both?

3. The meaning of the title and its use throughout the film? The initial song of the foxtrot and its lyrics and their meaning? The dancing of the foxtrot throughout the film? Liviu liking it? Of what was it a symbol? How was it used symbolically? a symbol of the twentieth century and the 20's and 30s?

4. The importance of the colour, location photography? The sea, the island? The wolf on the isolated island? Locations and atmosphere as a way of contrasting the two worlds of Liviu?

5. The importance of the 1939 and the audience knowledge of its European situation, war? the various confrontations in Europe? How did the characters represent something of that situation? How were they immersed in the 30's e.g. the films they watched, the comedies? The records played? Fashions, hair styles? Wealth? Behaviour? The 30's as a world to escape from?

6. Kal Liviu as a person? His sanity? His European background? His explanation of himself in relation to Larson, his wife, Julia? His sanity? His reasons for his leaving Europe? An opting out? His plans for the island, his activities? The importance of the visualising of his memories e.g. riding with Larsen, his mistress walking along the beach, the films - and Julia's reaction? A man living in the past or trying to escape from it? How did his character show the futility of trying to escape from the past?

7. The contrast with Julia - the film opening and closing with her asleep and in death? What did she symbolise within the allegory? Her past as a commoner and her relationship then with aristocracy and a count? Representing and looking like the 30s? Leading the aristocracy into the modern world? Her love for Liviu, haughty manner, her trying to be better than her origins? Her reaction to the home movie? Her fear of the water and of drowning and the irony of her death? Her reaction to the visitors and their intrusion? Her reaction to Eusebio and utilising him? The fact that she was raped by Larson or thought she was? Her being the final eruption of violence?

8. Larsen as an ordinary type, friendship with Liviu, skilled at his work, his presence on the island, friendship, building the island for his friends? Reaction to the visitors, to the women? To Julia, the rape? The death of Eusebio, the final clash with Liviu and his death? The island as a place where friend turned against friend? The importance of Eusebio as the new world, servant, his place on the island and his kind of service? Response to Julia? His being the victim in his death? Used and tricked by others? The possibilities of Utopia? The creation of an old world in the new? The symbolism of the island and its isolation? The landscapes, the recreation on the beaches, the swimming and yet the possibility of drowning, the seals etc.? The crabs and their races?

11. The island as a symbol of the world and the people representing aristocracy, the nouveau riche, the workers? Suddenly invaded by people who want their own way? The parties? The importance of the hunting and the deaths? The allegory of the Nazi invasion? Kal Liviu not getting anything? The significance of the ship vanishing?

12. What went wrong on the island? Why do people clash? The transition from friendship to stalking, fear and hatred?

13. The final death and destruction? Liviu taken to violence? Used the gun which was a gift and a gun he would not want on the island? His hatred of Larsen? His brutality towards Eusebio? The grief at the death of Julia? Why did Julia die and by drowning? The final sequence and its repetition of the beginning?

14. The movements of a dance of death? Would the ordinary audience appreciate these values of the allegory? in this important for the success or failure of the film?