The Far Side of Paradise

To date, this is the only English language film directed by relatively unknown Mexican film-maker Arturo Ripstein, whose most acclaimed film — Profundo Carmesí aka Deep Crimson (1996) — is a Spanish language account of the infamous ‘Honeymoon Killers’ murders. Made much earlier in his career, The Far Side of Paradise, is a offbeat, somewhat cryptic but nevertheless very capably directed melodrama, portraying a group of filthy rich aristocrats setting up their own microcosm of 1930s decadence on a isolated Pacific island. Roger Corman’s New World Pictures distributed the film in the USA, where it was given the title Foxtrot.

At the same time that World War II is heating up in Europe, Romanian Count, Liviu Midescu (Peter O’Toole) and his glamorous wife, Julia (a painfully thin Charlotte Rampling), arrive by boat to a recently purchased remote island — a paradise on which they leave a problematic world behind them. To maintain their comfortable lifestyle, they are accompanied by their butler Eusabio (Jorge Luke; Ulzana’s Raid) and a wide variety of luxurious supplies. The only other island resident is Larsen (Max von Sydow), an old military friend of Liviu’s who is charged with maintenance and inventory.

They set up a giant red marquee in which to live, spending their days in the sun eating gourmet food and drinking champagne, all the while waiting for a supply ship filled with building materials for their new residence. The unscheduled arrival of a large yacht, filled with Liviu’s aristocratic friends from Europe, temporarily disrupts their boredom, but the day after their arrival, the entourage decimates the island’s wildlife on a senseless shooting spree. The group leave, but one evening their vessel drifts back towards the island — totally abandoned with pages torn from the log book. Discovering rats on board, Larsen sets the yacht on fire, an event which marks the beginning of the end: paradise lost.