Bedevil is the first ever feature film directed by an Indigenous woman, a triptych of ghost stories presented with a quirky, playful tone, a heightened unreality and a quiet supernatural undercurrent.
A man (Jack Charles) recounts his encounter as a boy with the ghost of an American G.I. who drowned in a swamp. A woman (Director Tracey Moffatt) and her family contend with a spectral locomotive. A young boy (Riccardo Natoli) is intrigued by the volatile relationship and doomed romance of the couple who lived next door.
This isn’t an easy film to classify, Bedevil is not overtly dark and in many way feels light and yet still holds an obvious weight of tone. The narrator and subject matter often differ in race, here within the film, yet also within the media landscape at the time of production, a still relatively recent 30 years ago, an environment where Indigenous stories on film where not told with an Indigenous voice. It is telling that the middle segment with the narrator Auriel Andrews an older versions of Moffatt’s Ruby, is the most compelling of the three stories.
Moffatt is a phenomenal visual artist, known more for her photography than her cinematic work, her ‘Something More’ photographic series has me entranced.
Bedevil is the first ever feature film directed by an Indigenous woman, a triptych of ghost stories presented with a quirky, playful tone, a heightened unreality and a quiet supernatural undercurrent.
A man (Jack Charles) recounts his encounter as a boy with the ghost of an American G.I. who drowned in a swamp. A woman (Director Tracey Moffatt) and her family contend with a spectral locomotive. A young boy (Riccardo Natoli) is intrigued by the volatile relationship and doomed romance of the couple who lived next door.
This isn’t an easy film to classify, Bedevil is not overtly dark and in many way feels light and yet still holds an obvious weight of tone. The narrator and subject matter often differ in race, here within the film, yet also within the media landscape at the time of production, a still relatively recent 30 years ago, an environment where Indigenous stories on film where not told with an Indigenous voice. It is telling that the middle segment with the narrator Auriel Andrews an older versions of Moffatt’s Ruby, is the most compelling of the three stories.
Moffatt is a phenomenal visual artist, known more for her photography than her cinematic work, her ‘Something More’ photographic series has me entranced.
