The October Project 2: Day 11

 

 

"There is no good or evil, only spirit and matter. Only movement toward the light - and away from it."

Dust Devil  (1992)
Directed by Richard Stanley

Director Richard Stanley's follow-up to Hardware suffered from years of post-production and distribution hell until it came to be regarded as practically a "lost" film. Luckily, it re-emerged in 2005 in an excellent special edition DVD so genre fans were finally able to see what an extraordinary and unique film it is.
Based on African shape shifter legends combined with Stanley's own fascination with stories and songs about mysterious drifters Dust Devil is a sort of metaphysical spaghetti western. A woman on the run from an abusive husband encounters a mysterious trench coated drifter who turns out to be some sort of soul stealing immortal, maybe a devil, maybe an angel. She escapes and he follows with terminator-like determination.
Beautifully filmed in the South African desert, the film somehow manages to recall Tarkovsky, Jodorowsky and Leone. It also boasts an excellent score by composer Simon Boswell.
A one-of-a-kind genre-bender deserving of a wider audience.