Reflections in a Golden Eye

A remarkable film by Huston, who displays his innate talent for extracting easily recognisable and very vivid themes out of a rather tortuous narrative. The farcical action takes place during peacetime in the married quarters of a Deep South army base.

Marlon Brando plays a homosexual major while Elizabeth Taylor plays his wife. He fancies a young private who likes to ride nude on horseback, while she is having an affair with their neighbour, whose neurotic wife is having an affair with her Filipino houseboy while the young private gets off on watching Taylor as she sleeps.

Try not to be put off by this seemingly unworkable plot. It is to Huston's credit that the film remains entirely accessible, and revels in some delightfully quirky bits of humour while never sinking to nadirs of ludicrousness. Huston's typically off-beat sense of humour goes hand in hand with the bizarre interrelationships in the plot, and ultimately is the main force that strings the film together.

Also noteworthy, however, is fine attention to characterisation within the convoluted plotline, hence most of the characters come out of this with much depth and credibility. Huston manages to convey lucidly the torpid and torrid feelings of summer stagnation and repression with the frustrating routine of this army camp life eloquently mapped out. An amusing film, with the mad characters and weird happenings perfectly justified by Huston's superb realisation of the frustration and claustrophobic despair driving the protagonists to such rabid actions.

Review by Mark Radice
Taken from EUFS Programme 1994-95