Dark River
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| Dark River | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Malcolm Taylor |
| Produced by | Malcolm Taylor |
| Written by | Malcolm Taylor |
| Starring | Tom Bell, Kate Buffery, Sian Phillips, Ian McNeice, Michael Denison, Freddie Jones |
| Music by | Keith Miller |
| Editing by | Stuart Taylor |
| Release date(s) | 1990 |
| Running time | 1 hr. 40 min. |
This article refers to the movie. If you were looking for the second book in the Warriors: The Power of Three series, see Dark River (Warriors).
Dark River is an award-winning[citation needed] British film, featuring Tom Bell, Siân Phillips, Kate Buffery, Ian MacNeice, Tony Haygarth amongst others. Dark River was an official selection at the 1990 Montreal Film Festival and the Ghent Film Festival of the same year.
[edit] Plot summary
On the banks of a river flowing through the lowlands of Africa the British have set up a colony without the restraints of European civilization. Into this tight-knit community a stranger (Deacon) strays, refusing to abide by its self-serving code. He is immediately set at odds with the locals; a businessman ( K B Priestley) who employs his authority in the community to disguise his personal weaknesses, his daughter (Lydia) who uses the men in the community as rungs in her climb out of provincialism, a sour, manipulative club barman (Yorkie), a widow and cocoa heiress (Mrs Blessington) who plays puppet-master from a distance, hero of the bars Oliver with his dubious investment schemes, sardonic gossip columnist Jane Audeby, and club waiter Elias who becomes his most candid counsellor. Deacon's big mistake is to write and publish a novel which draws on their weaknesses ... and the novel's big mistake is to become a success back home. Before sunrise one morning a boat sets sail upriver. In it are First Secretary Hugo Shrike - and Deacon, who has made a rendezvous somewhere on the banks with the person he has vowed to destroy. By nightfall the community will number one person fewer. Dark River invites the viewer to share the vantage point of Deacon as he is cheated, manipulated, seduced and misled in a series of long, no-holds-barred speeches directly to camera, while all the while the river winds its way round the protagonists like a strangling ivy. In many ways a demanding film, Colonial Dispatches breaks new ground in its exploration of the most beguiling topography of all - the human face.
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