I still remember one English film which I had seen when I was a kid. I remember it because I found it to be an extremely interesting and absorbing film. The name of the film was Lost in the Desert. The film was written and directed by Jamie Uys. Wynand Uys played the role of the child who was lost in the desert and this child was supposed to be the central character of the film. Jamie Uys played the child's father in the same film. The best thing is that Jamie Uys and Wynand Uys are father and son off the screen too. There was another character played by Pieter Hauptfleisch and in the film he was supposed to be the uncle of the child. He had a small role to play but that role was quite important. The child's name in the film is supposed to be Dirkie. I remember this film was shown in the theaters somewhere in 1969 or 1970. The film was shot mostly at Kalahari Desert.
The story was something like this. Dirkie's father is a good pianist. The music that this film had was really great. The film had mostly classical piano music since Dirkie's father was portrayed as a pianist. The story revolves around Dirkie who is flying with his Uncle Pete over the Kalahari Desert in a small plane. It is Uncle Pete who is flying the plane. But suddenly he suffers a heart attack and appears to be losing the control of the plane. He has to struggle really hard to see to it that the plane lands safely in the desert and he somehow endures the heartache till the landing of the plane. But once the plane lands safely in the desert Pete loses his life and Dirkie along with his small pet dog survives. The movie then narrates the various adventures that Dirkie undergoes in the dreadful desert. The poor chap has to struggle really hard to survive the harsh and horrible conditions of the desert. One feels extreme pity for the child and at the same time gets impressed by the daring he displays while tackling the tough situations he lands in. There is a time when a wolf like creature keeps haunting Dirkie and the dog, and Dirkie has a tough time keeping the dangerous creature away. Then the movie shows how Dirkie and his dog survives after their stock of food is finished. The two survive on whatever kind of food that the desert can offer them. There is a scene where Dirkie makes omelets out of the eggs laid by unknown creature, with the help of desert heat, and consumes them just to survive. Both Dirkie and his dog have to walk a long way and there are times when Dirkie removes whatever garments he is wearing to use them as flags to wave at passing planes and helicopters on top. But the poor chap gets no response. Then Dirkie gets temporary relief when he comes across some Bushmen who try to help him. But when they offer him some non-veg food and Dirkie does not find his dog anywhere around he abuses them at the top of his voice since he was under the impression that the stuff they had given him to eat was the meat of his dog. The bushmen are unable to understand Dirkie and they abandon him there and thus Dirkie loses an advantage. While Dirkie is lost in the desert his father is not sitting quiet. He too is shown as making desperate efforts to locate his child. He also makes millions of leaflets containing instruction for Dirkie on how to survive in the desert and assuring him that he loved him and would rescue him soon, and these leaflets he spread over the desert from the plane. There are scenes when Dirkie's father is shown as playing on his piano the tune which expresses his grief over his lost child. He also mortgages his house to pay for the expenses of finding his son especially after a newspaper refuses to give him funds for that purpose. When all the means to find his son fails, he himself travels to the Kalahari Desert and here he finds the Bushmen who had met Dirkie and they show Dirkie's father the direction in which Dirkie was last seen going. He finally finds Dirkie but in a state as if he was dead. Maybe Dirkie wouldn't survive if his father was a little late in reaching him. The film ends with unconscious Dirkie in his father's arms together with his little dog which is being taken towards the vehicle in which his father had traveled into the desert. The scene is extremely pathetic and very emotional. There is one emotional scene in the movie when Dirkie's father is playing the piano and he remembers his lost child which worries him to such an extent that he hits the piano's keyboard extremely angrily and this produces loud crashing discords. There were film critics those days who said that the film was meant for children. But I personally feel that it was a kind of film which would interest many adults too. Anyway, Lost in the Desert was one of the best films I had ever seen!
No comments:
Post a Comment