RITUALS

Canada, 1977, 100 minutes, Colour.
Hal Holbrook, Lawrence Dane.
Directed by Peter Carter.

A violent film patterned on Deliverance: men go out on a holiday into rugged nature. They are confronted by the physicality of nature and its hostility and have to survive. They are also pursued by hostile human beings who wreak vengeance and humiliation on them. They have to fight for survival and discover so much truth about themselves. This is rather low key Deliverance material but presented very forcefully and making the audience experience the physical pressures of the trek and the fears and isolation of remote nature. There are themes about war, and the injustices wreaked by doctors and incompetence and the concomitant repercussions and revenge. While the plot is rather far-fetched it serves as a fable about revenge, justice and human survival. Hal Holbrook is the best known star. The film was directed by Peter Carter who made at the same time the trucking film High Ballin'.

1. The significance and focus of the title, its tone, indication of themes?

2. The popularity of the film 'Deliverance' in the early seventies and the relation of this to it? A satisfying derivative from 'Deliverance'? The presentation of a group of men and the masculine ethos, the holiday and the trek through nature, the presentation of nature in its beauty, ugliness and severity, menace and isolation, human persecution and humiliation, injury and death, the need for fighting for survival and human dignity?

3. How well did the film show what happens to men under pressure? The possibility of heroism or not?

4. The opening and the presentation of the beauty of nature, the holiday atmosphere, the helicopter and the guide, the plans, the comradeship? The indication of the name of the terrain and the emphasis on Cauldron, where moon met earth? The ominous tone in this name? The presentation of the bush in its physical detail, beauty, the move to greater barrenness and isolation, nature becoming harder? Seeing nature through different eyes throughout the film?

5. The importance of the goal of the holiday, the short comparative distance, the walk through the bush? The journey symbolism? The dam as a goal? The symbolism of the dam of civilisation, water? The irony of its being abandoned and the goal being a false one?

6. The significance of the group being doctors? Their talk, their discussion about responsibility, irresponsibility? Career, skills? The gradual revelation of the plot and the story of the vendetta? The various clues throughout the film? The tokens of revenge? The implications of revenge being taken on members of a profession by abuses from other members of the profession? The justice of this? Audience response to this kind of vendetta hypothesis?

7. The build-up of the atmosphere of menace and strange presence? human response to mystery, the unknown? The gradual revelation of the truth at the end? The audience sharing the mystery: the disappearance of the boots the dead carcass, the trap and the catching of feet, the medal, the hanging, the X rays and the other documents?

8. Men in an ordinary setting, the subtle changes and the effect on character and personality?

9. The macho atmosphere of the men as they went on their holiday, holiday talk, boasting, sexuality, drinking, fighting and clashes, camping etc.?

10. The character of D. J. and his organizing the holiday, his going for rescue after the boots were taken, his complaints about their response to his information, the potential rescuer and the discovery of him tied near the dam, the importance of Harry's decision to kill him? the visualising of this killing by strangulation?

11. Abel as genial, fat, a fool in his own way? His photos, the disappearance of the boots, the violence of his death?

12. Marty and his drinking, his success as a doctor and yet his failure, his admiration for his brother, the importance of the homosexuality and his image of himself, his injury and his being carried, the pain, the incessant talk, the decisions to carry him or not, his finally having to be abandoned?

13. The character of Mitzi? The successful doctor, the seeming strong man, his ability to cope and his collapse, the growing fears, his disgust with people and taunting them? The clashes with Harry especially about his father? His despising of Marty and wanting to leave him? His hopes for D.J. and rescue? The build-up to the final carrying of Martv? The arrival at the dam and his leaving? The ugliness of his being strung up and burnt? The retribution and his being killed after wishing to allow Marty to die?

14. The theme of retribution - for what sin. for what guilt? The importance of the mutilating operation during World War II and its repercussions for the man in the forest? Were these doctors rightly punished for the abuses?

15. Harry as hero? His qualities of leadership? As a character in himself with strengths and weaknesses, the man who coped? His skills, work? His story of Korea and his sense of responsibility? His despising of his father and the memories of his father's illness and death? His clashing with Mitzi? The relationship to each of the men? The importance of carrying Marty and helping him to survive? His pride and his refusal to be degraded? The encounter with Jeans? His own wound and his inability to save Mitzi from death? His confrontation with the mutilated man and his realisation of the truth? The significance of his sitting on the highway at the end?

16. What was the audience left with after experiencing this trek through hostile nature and with the threats from a hostile man?