PeruvianSkies
06-27-2007, 10:23 PM
I happened to catch THE FOX (1967) tonight on AMC and was hugely surprised by this film. First off the film is adapted from D.H. Lawrence's novella about two woman living isolated in the wilderness in a cabin. They are friends, and have lesbian-tendencies, which in 1967 would have been incredibly controversial, and the film was. Made in Canada there were few films at this time to deal with Biphobia, Homophobia, Bisexuality, etc etc, but the film centers around the two females who eventually become involved with a young male drifter played by Keir Dullea (who the following year played Dave Bowman in 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY). The "Fox" represents both the animal that pesters the woman on their cabin/farm and they are unable to kill the animal in order to save their chickens. However, there is also an obvious metaphorical representation here as well in which the Fox represents the 'man' coming to them and eventually 'forcing' one of the women to fall in love with her. He is the 'hunter/gatherer' that they need and tension builds as the three of them live together in a rather bizarre love triangle. She loves him, he loves her, she loves her, she loves him, and so on and so forth. It's slightly overdramatic, but then again it's a literary work that is exaggerated to make it's point. The film has tons of subcontext and tries to go lightly on the lesbianism, but it's more than some might expect.