Dust Devil

Richard Stanley's Dust Devil (1992) re-interprets the true story of a South African serial killer, known among locals as "Nhadiep". Drawing upon the literary gothic traditions of Frankenstein-ian guilt and the "divided self", Dust Devil is set within a haunting landscape which may be interpreted as psychological rather than as physical. Under the gaze of Stanley's camera, the swirling backdrop of the arid Namib Desert comes to incarnate the tortured mental states of the film's central characters.

Described by Stanley as "the archetypal South African horror story", Dust Devil has its origins in news reports of bizarre ritualistic murders taking place in the town of Bethany. The killer who inspired Dust Devil principally murdered migrant workers and railways workers. The authorities failed to make any progress with investigations and consequently over the years a legend grew up that it was supernatural force, allied to the wind. Finally, there was a shoot-out in the Canyons, and the police turned up at the town of Bethsheba with the body of a man they claimed was the killer. However the head was entirely blown off, so the corpse was unidentifiable. Eventually the body was buried in the mission town in a grave marked "Nhadiep". Evidence to prove whether this was the killer remains vague.

Dust Devil presents in the figure of Hitch (Robert Burke) a shape-shifting demon who seduces his victims towards a violent death. The narrative line of the film is simple. The land surrounding the town of Bethany is beset by murders with overtones of witchcraft and tribal ritual. Enigmatic, mystical symbols scrawled in the victim's blood suggest that the killings have a sacrificial purpose. Investigating the mystery is Ben Mukurob (Zakes Mokae), a disillusioned black policeman, whose wife left him fifteen years previously, following the death of their son. Meanwhile, battered white suburban housewife Wendy (Chelsea Fields) walks out on her abusive husband, and drives off into the desert, heading inexorably, and inexplicably for Bethany. En route, Wendy picks up Hitch, a mysterious traveller whom she finds both seductive and repellent. As Ben's investigation points ever more clearly to the involvement of supernatural forces in the murders, Wendy slowly uncovers the terrible nature of Hitch.

For Stanley, the film's gothic style puts the nightmare back into the region's history. Dust Devil is centrally about the "Num" - the shape shifter of South African mythology - but it is equally about a land haunted by its colonial past. Stanley evokes angst-laden memories involving fire-arm abuse, serial killings, car accidents, people being strangled with barbed wire, born out of the twin evils of racism and sexism which beset South Africa.

The structural framework of the film does not attempt to follow a linear thriller convention. Hitch is portrayed less as a real person than as an entity, which is simply a mirage. Stanley concentrates on the magical elements of the legend of Nhadiep, invoking tribal rituals, witchcraft and Namibian mysticism. He also foregrounds the awesome Nambian scenery, conjuring an almost surreal vision of a timeless, dreamscape environment.

Allied to this theme the film presents a number of hypnotic dream sequences. The most startling depicts Ben returning to the morgue where he previously examined a victim's body. The body on the slab in this scene is no longer the murdered girl but Ben's son. Ben's in-laws are present, and he tries to apologise for his son's death. But his wife tells him: "It's because of you and your stupid pride". Then Ben cuts off one of his son's fingers. This is part of a magical ritual which reflects back to an earlier scene. Here Ben's friend Joe tells him that he cut his fingers off as a sacrificial gesture. So in the dream, Ben is offering a sacrifice to allow his son's spirit to pass on.

This sacrificial motif is central to the film, as is the theme of suicidal guilt. Ben is portrayed as a man desperately seeking his own death. This is convincingly achieved by animating the character of Ben's departed wife Katie, who appears to Ben in his dreams to taunt him about the death of his son. In the back-story, Ben's son was in the army and killed in a border incident. Since black people are not drafted in South Africa, the implication is that his son joined up to follow is father - he joined because his father was a policeman. As far as Katie is concerned, she believes that it was Ben's misplaced love of his country that caused their son's death. Ben has been in pain for a long time and this increasingly solidifies into a feeling that he is actively seeking death.

With the character of Wendy, the motivations are slightly different. She appears intent on a path of destruction, but finally recoils - but by this stage an inescapable conclusion has been cast.

The central notion underlying Dust Devil concerns the "self" and a relationship with death. Hitch is attracted to people who seek their own destruction. Ben and Wendy are seeking out "the Dust Devil" to end their pain: they are searching for death. Essentially, then, Dust Devil is a film about magic and suicide.

Reviewed by Adrian Gargett