Review of Dust Devil (1992) by R.c. K — 06 Sep 2007

This is the cover which first intrigued me--as well as the fact that it listed for 29.99 and was 5 (!) discs.

As it happens, it is also from a limited print run of 10,000 (!).

And, anyone reading may or may not know that if something intrigues me that much...I'm doomed to look much, much further into it. Reading plenty about it, and seeing screen captures from the film, hearing about its beautiful cinematography, unusual use of African mysticism--and that, for that matter, it is effectively a South African film...I gave in. It was only now after watching it that I discovered the limited print run.

However, the case is pretty darn crammed--it looks, from the outside, much like the cases for the 4 disc editions of Farscape: Starburst Edition, thick, Die Hard/Suspiria/Titus/Once Upon a Time in the West style cases (more in the farscape vein as it is not 3 separate "covers"--just two) with that nice clear plastic seen on the original Saw DVD, or the new REM one, or any of a number of other discs.

Included are a set of essays and comments by Richard Stanley (the writer and director of Dust Devil) on his documentaries The Secret Glory, The White Darkness and Voice of the Moon--all three of which are included in this set.

Next is a bit of a production diary on the making of the film (Dust Devil, that is) and a short, 12 page comic about the character of "Hitch" (the Dust Devil himself).

Under the discs you can see portions of two of the original posters for the film. The discs are:

The film itself, a work print of the film, The Secret Glory--a documentary about the real Nazi who sought the Holy Grail, the soundtrack to the film as composed by Simon Boswell and The White Darkness, Stanley's voodoo documentary, and Voice of the Moon his Taliban documentary on the final disc.

So, basically, this is a pretty damn astonishing DVD set, especially for the price.

Anyway, the whole point here is I just finished watching the movie. Well. Forty minutes ago.

I'd read things about iffy acting, iffy plotting, iffy pacing and so on, but of course 90% of these are based on the 95 minute cut the Weinsteins massacred the film into against Stanley's wishes.

Are there bits of iffy acting? Yeah.

Of course it pretty much disappears after 20 minutes, interestingly enough--though Robert Burke's sudden appearance with an American accent does throw off the speech pattern, accent and rhythm you're getting used to by that time, which can confuse the acting level, but it is a bit clunky.

However the face on that son of a bitch is so perfect for this character, and he gets it completely right when not speaking--and even for every line after the first 2-3, you just really don't care.

Iffy plotting? Is it thin? I guess it's fairly thin, but does it NEED to be that thick? No, honestly, it doesn't.

Hitch is an otherworldly being who is trying to regain entry to the world or plane or existence he came from (Richard doesn't specify and it's that much better for it) and Wendy is his intended victim. Ben Mukurob is a somewhat destitute cop attempting to stop the murderer he cannot identify until he is given information regarding his supernatural origins.

Follow from there fairly logically.

But because it is not a slam-bang action thriller or a straight horror film or anything of the like, it works perfectly.

The cinematography is absolutely as beautiful as everyone says, and these locations are just absolutely stunning. The way the characters and relationships play out, and the plot in general, feels 100% right and 100% not how it "has to be" but completely how it *should* be.

The images and ideas that really heavily start to spill out toward the end only furthered my interest that much more.

I definitely liked it; but I feel I'll need to see it again to judge it in the context of all my film experience.

In any case, I'd recommend it to anyone who digs the supernatural and doesn't mind a bit of slow pacing (but appropriately slow). I really want to track down Stanely's film Hardware now though...

(10/04/06).