Sorry for the delay on this one, university has a way of stopping me from watching films. Note that this review is on the "Final Cut" of the film, which I hear is far superior to the theatrical version.
Perhaps a film where the tagline is "He's not a serial killer, he's much worse" looks a bit out-of-place among the other titles I've reviewed. I might agree with you there, but don't let that put you off watching what is actually a very atmospheric and artistic horror film.
The eponymous villain is a shapeshifter who preys on those who have nothing left in life. When a woman named Wendy runs away from her abusive husband, she picks up the Dust Devil and a series of grisly and surreal events occur.
The plot is fairly predictable, but has a number of interesting features to do with African witchcraft and is set against the background of racial tension in South Africa. But the focus of the film is undoubtedly on the atmosphere rather than the storyline.
Although the genre here is definitely supernatural horror, the film's feel seems influenced by artists such as Sergio Leone and Peter Weir on top of the ones you might expect, like Carpenter, Argento, Fulci and Bava. The result is a slow-paced dreamy haze over supernatural creepy imagery and spatterings of gore. The main components of the former part are Simon Boswell's drifting, haunting score, and Steven Chiver's imaginative, beautiful cinematography.
Stanley's direction is assured and well-paced. Character development segments are mixed up with surreal dream sequences and atmospheric long takes of the desert, making a cohesive and well-structured film.
Unfortunately, the acting lets the film down in some places, especially that of the police captain who is trying to catch the Dust Devil. A lot of it feels unnatural and forced. However, Robert Burke plays the part of the villain excellently, being both cold and intense.
Dust Devil has picked up something of a cult following in recent years and it is easy to see why. Its strong technical aspects and dreamy, haunting atmosphere make it a solid thinking-man's western-tinged horror film. The predictable plot and suspect acting damage it somewhat, but if what I've described sounds like your kind of film, I'd recommend checking it out.
This one is a bit dubious with regards to country-of-origin, but I'm counting it because Dreyer was Danish.
I never thought that a film about a homosexual relationship could be made in the '20s until I saw Michael. By today's standards all the allusions are incredibly subtle, but by the those of the day, it's incredible that the film was even released.
The titular character is a young model who catapulted an older artist to fame and now lives with him as an adopted son/lover. As the film progresses, he becomes more distant from his painter and closer to a princess whom his master is capturing.
Perhaps the most striking aspect of the film is the art direction. The architecture and decoration of the rooms are astoundingly beautiful; the giant head statue, the water fountain and many other features make the mansion feel very grandiose and a work of art in itself.
The art is all excellently captured by the cinematography, which makes strong use of deep focus (anyone who says that Citizen Kane invented deep focus simply hasn't seen enough early German cinema) to create complex framings and give the large rooms a greater sense of space. As Dreyer would go on to perfect in his later films (most notably The Passion of Joan of Arc), close-ups are put to good use, effectively capturing all the emotion in the character's faces.
Unfortunately, the aforementioned emotion doesn't really take any skill to capture, which brings me to my main gripe about the film: the melodrama. The whole film is rife with super-sentimentality and overacting. It seems impossible that the same man who made this film would go on to direct an incredibly subtle performance, decades ahead of its time only four years later, or show such a masterful understanding of the depths and intricacies of emotion in Ordet (which is his masterpiece in my humble opinion). For all of Michael's beauty and historical intrigue, it is forced to be a minor film in Dreyer's oeuvre with its uncharacteristic presentation style.
It would, however, be a mistake to avoid the film just because of the melodrama, as there are a number of important and well explored themes contained within. I love films about artists, as I always feel they are in some way autobiographical for the director (being a firm believer in auteur theory) and reflect their views of art and the problems with creating it. Michael is no different and gives very interesting insight into the way that an artist interacts with their subjects and how the painter-model or director-actor relationship affects them in their private lives. Youth is also an important theme, especially the understanding of others due to the stage of life that one is at and how different ages view people and the world in different ways.
Although the over-sentimentality does damage the film somewhat, Michael is still worth watching as an interesting example of early gay cinema, a work of great aesthetic beauty and a great study of the relationship between an artist and their subject.
Also recommended from Denmark:
Other films by Carl Theodore Dreyer (Vampyr, The Passion of Joan of Arc, Ordet)
Lars Von Trier (Dancer in the Dark, Breaking the Waves, Europa)
Thomas Vinterberg (Festen)
Benjamin Christensen (Häxan)
Gabriel Axel (Babette's Feast)
