Dust Devil comes from a long tradition of stories with basic plot elements in common.
They share these things: Modern, well-educated people find themselves up against something straight out of an ancient legend/ folk-tale/ mythology. These people must overcome their
disbelief, then turn to traditional or ancient weapons. Not contemporary science, which proves to be powerless.
They must look to someone who knows the old legends…or perhaps, to some native shaman, wise man or magician who is familiar with the magic tradition in the myth. Only they know what to do next.
Dracula, The Exorcist, Curse of the Demon, Poltergeist, and The Last Wave all have subplots similar to this. Remember the
intimidating medical tests Regan must suffer through, in
The Exorcist… none of them doing her any good. Modern science has great powers… but not over everything.
But this formula is no guarantee of success—think of The Sentinel (1977) and Blacula, and lots, lots more.
You get the broad outline of the
Dust Devil mythology in voice-over as the movie begins.
“The desert wind was a man like us; then grew wings and flew like a bird. He became a hunter, like a hawk, and took refuge in those far corners of the world where magic still lingers. Having once been a man, he still suffers the passions of a man…”
How real will this legend feel to you? That depends on another question. It depends on how well you can accept the Dust Devil in human form; a man sounding and looking something like a young Clint Eastwood (High Plains Drifter, Pale Rider for example), wearing a long coat decorated with human bones.
He is photographed in a way that reminds you of Eastwood in Sergio Leone’s films and later, in Eastwood’s own.
Listening for signs of life in the desert
You see him first alongside a highway in a desert resembling the inferno–inside the nation of Namibia. He is pressing his ear against the highway, which seems so empty that he is in no danger. Soon a car driven by a lonely woman stops; she offers him a.ride. Then… not much later, the chance to stay at her
house. The gardens and house feel like a speck of color in an endless wasteland. Soon they are in her bed. The Dust Devil breaks her neck, killing her it seems, in mid-orgasm.
Lovemaking abruptly cut off by killing
He stops long enough to light several candles
in her bedroom. Then he uses her blood to sketch ritualistic drawings on the walls. He cuts off several of her fingers then carefully saves them.
One of the drawings the stranger leaves
Next, he finds a can of gasoline and sets fire
to the house. Much of it burns but definitely
not all.
The phone rings for Detective Ben Mukurob. First he ignores it, thinking it is one of his sad, frightening dreams. He has had a lot of those dreams recently. Except for a large dog sleeping close-by he appears painfully alone.
Soon after, Ben gets another call, describing the burned house. Your first impression may be (as mine was) that he is too cynical to care. But that impression is very wrong. He takes his job most
seriously.
Meanwhile, in the neighboring country of South Africa, Wendie, a home-maker in her twenties is arguing with her husband, Mark. She makes up her mind to leave him and drives away.
At the dead woman’s house, Ben speaks to his supervisor. The boss is sure that this is the work of terrorists.
Ben–determined to bring in the killer
Ben is equally sure it is not. The political situation in Namibia and South Africa had changed recently, stabilizing in some ways. Terrorists are less common now.
Dust Devil does something uncommon: voice-over is used to
continue telling the unfolding plot. As Wendie keeps her word about leaving, the narration continues: “Out of the flatlands she came. Into the drylands…He had been calling her…drawing her to Bethany…”
Bethany, the Namibian town is indeed dying: no rain for seven years, its one major industry already shut down. Wendie, in her car, and the Dust Devil in a train, have both picked Bethany as their next stop.
More narration: “He sifts the human storm for souls. He can smell a town waiting to die.” You feel that Wendie and
Dust Devil inevitably will meet; it is only a matter of
time.
At the same time Ben talks to the coroner about the victim’s remains. Neck broken, the drawings on the walls sketched in her blood, probably mixed with body fat, iron ore, and kaolin (clay). The coroner, a white woman, tells Ben who is African, that the
killing is tied in with witchcraft. She recommends he speak to a sangoma, an expert on witchcraft rituals.
Ben has an old friend Joe who is a sangoma. But the detective has turned his back on magic and rituals. He aims to be more like Sherlock Holmes, or one of the CSI team, staying with rational,
purely scientific explanations.
As if it was fated, Wendie and the Dust Devil cross paths. Wendie gives the stranger a lift, and immediately you feel the mutual attraction. They talk on and off; suddenly Wendie sees him on the road and realizes he is no longer in the car. Hours later, alone in a motel room she takes a bath. She makes a sudden
decision to slit her wrists with a razor then abruptly changes
her mind.
Ready and waiting for Wendie
The Dust Devil can sense her wish to die. He waits in the motel bedroom. Wendie knows he is out there. Next morning, as she prepares to drive away, he is already sitting in the car.
Their attraction continues to grow. They stop at another motel, dine in an outdoor café and dance to country and Western music played on loudspeakers. In the motel room, they have sex.
But afterward, the Dust Devil talks–more than he ever has before. “You don’t understand…This wind keeps blowing me on and on…You don’t know who I am…”
He showers and Wendie looks through his collection of snapshots. They seem harmless enough. Then she finds severed fingers and knows she is in grave danger. The Dust Devil tries to comfort her with the truth—“all these people wanted to die…I was only the midwife…”
But Wendie no longer wishes to die.
“You picked the wrong one this time, you bastard!” She drives off.
Ben changes his mind; he talks to his old friend Joe despite his own doubts about magic. Joe tells Ben that this is the work of a
shape-shifter. He adds, “You’ve got to stop thinking like a White man and start thinking like a man instead.” He pleads with Ben to
take a carved stick with him, and keep it close. The stick has the power to bind the Dust Devil, to root him to the ground.
Ben, with his strong faith in science and logic, has trouble believing this. “You’ve been watching too many drive-in movies,” he says, but does let Joe give him the stick, before leaving for
Bethany.
Wendie wanders out into a seemingly endless desert, followed by the Dust Devil, Ben, and Mark. All but Mark catch up to each other in a ghost town, every building with floors covered ankle-high in sand.
Dust Devil deserves praise for originality in several elements. The music by Simon Boswell takes on many forms. At times it feels reminiscent of Ennio Morricone’s work in Sergio Leone movies like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and Once Upon a Time in the West. Other times it is like a vocal chorus without words, as if the Earth itself is humming. The photography is
outstanding, showing the desert barren, endless, devoid
of color, a place where death is never far away and life is
precious. Check out the shot in the desert with the Dust Devil sitting absolutely still on a rock outcropping, and thirty feet higher up, vultures waiting calmly.
Zakes Mokae, so good in movies like A Dry White Season and
The Serpent and the Rainbow, is excellent a the haunted Ben, and John Matshikiza equally good in the tricky role of Joe. (He is also effective as the narrator.) Robert Burke (Rescue Me,Munich) strikes most of the right notes as the Dust Devil. To
avoid leaving out anyone, the entire cast does the job.
You may find still more influences that I missed out on, that have been borrowed by Dust Devil.
Having said that, I still find this movie highly original and unusual. I can’t recommend this one enough.