AiM After Hours
Dust Devil
Sat 1 Nov at 9.30pm
Richard Stanley | South Africa/Namibia/UK 1992 | 1h47m | 35mm | English | 18
In the vast Namib wastes, a stranger in a long black coat hitches
lifts along the endless road, a spine running through Namibia. Soon
the wasteland is littered with corpses and the last policeman in the
small town of Bethany is faced with a mystery that threatens his
eternal soul.
A young woman on the run from her broken marriage in
Pretoria picks up the stranger and becomes enmeshed in a dance of
death with a Soul-taker, intent on releasing the miserable from their
oh-too-solid flesh. His mission, this lonely man - an amalgam of the
singer from The Fields of the Nephilim and the arisen revenger from
Django Kill! - is to release the souls of those who want to die. Some
of these may not realise their true desires and he is there to show
them their destiny.
Richard Stanley's direction is subtle and
penetrating, juggling the horror film conventions with an examination
of a country and a people scarred by racism, war and sexism.
As part of AiM After Hours, Trevor Steele Taylor will introduce the screening and host a
discussion with director Richard Stanley afterwards.