Lost in the Desert
Encyclopedia
Lost in the Desert is a South Africa
n film from 1969/1970, written and directed by Jamie Uys
, who also directed the better-known The Gods Must Be Crazy
. Prominent roles were played by Wynand Uys as Dirkie Hayes (the young boy who is the central character), Jamie Uys as Anton Hayes (Dirkie's father), and Pieter Hauptfleisch as Uncle Pete (Dirkie's uncle). Wynand Uys is Jamie Uys's son in real life as well as in the acted roles in the film.
Some sources, such as lists of film credits and advertising posters, gave Jamie Uys's name as Jamie Hayes (in both roles, as director and actor of Anton Hayes' part), and also gave Wynand Uys's name as Dirkie Hayes, thus making the boy actor's name appear to be the same as the part he is acting. However, the DVD re-issue gives the real names.
There is also disagreement amongst these sources about whether the English-language version appeared in 1969 or 1970. This discrepancy may possibly be due to different release dates in different English-speaking countries, although complete certainty about this does not seem to be available.
in a small plane
, pilot
ed by Uncle Pete, who partway into the flight has a heart attack
and partially loses control of the plane. Thanks to his struggles to land safely in the desert even while suffering the heart attack, the crash is not as serious as it might have been otherwise, and, while Pete himself dies, Dirkie and his small pet dog survive, and the bulk of the story follows Dirkie's various adventures while he struggles to survive the harsh desert conditions, including an encounter with Kalahari Desert Bushmen
, who give him help, but abandon him after an unfortunate misunderstanding concerning Dirkie's dog.
The story switches several times to Dirkie's father Anton Hayes (played by Jamie Uys the director himself) and follows his increasingly desperate efforts to locate his son, including having a couple of million leaflets specially printed and spread over the desert from a plane, containing instructions for Dirkie on how to survive in the desert, and assuring him that his father loves him and won't give up trying to rescue him. The film features the unusual technique of showing Anton playing the piano, then switching to Dirkie in the desert while continuing to use the piano music as background music for the following desert scenes.
Ultimately Anton travels to the Kalahari Desert himself after everything else fails to make progress. (He has had to mortgage his house to pay for the expenses of finding Dirkie after a newspaper backs out of an earlier offer to assist with expenses.) In the desert, he meets one of the Bushmen who had earlier met Dirkie, and gets information about the direction Dirkie was last seen going in, and he is finally able to find Dirkie, who looks as if he is close to death. His dog is still with him, although injured. The film ends with Dirkie (unconscious) in his father's arms, together with his little dog (still alert), both being carried back to the vehicle his father had travelled there in.
The DVD re-issue states that the film is based on a true story.
and Frédéric Chopin
, to the point that Liszt's Liebestraum
no. 3 in A-flat major (S./G. 541, R. 211, no. 3) and Chopin's Polonaise no. 6 in A-flat major, op. 53 ("Polonaise héroïque") almost become de facto themes for the film.
Some of the climactic portions of the Liebestraum form a sweeping sonic backdrop to early scenes in the desert (before the crash landing), showing a lunch stop in the empty desert and then taking off and resuming the flight.
There is a striking and emotionally intense scene in which Dirkie's father is practising the Polonaise at home and his worry about Dirkie causes him to have a sudden emotional breakdown, in which he interrupts his playing by hitting the piano's keyboard angrily with his fists and producing loud crashing discords.
In addition, the very opening scene of the actual story (after the differing introductions to the two versions of the film) shows Dirkie and his father playing Chopsticks
together on the piano as a duet.
Other than classical pieces, original music for the film was composed by Art Heatley, William Loose, and Sam Sklair. One German web site also credits Gilbert Gibson as another composer for the film. However, the DVD credits only Sklair for original music.
Please be aware that the Australian Jazz singer Edwin Duff (B 3 June 1928) is credited in the end titles as singing the main (and original) theme of the movie. This music is not on the versions of Dirkie remaining such as the DVD. The original Dirkie includes an original theme sung by this excellent singer (whose style is similar to Matt Monro).
s show that aspects of the film are remembered very vividly and with horror by those who saw it as children. It seems to have struck a particular chord in the UK, where it was released in cinemas as a double-bill with The Golden Voyage of Sinbad
in 1974.
Discussions and memories of the film posted online suggest that viewers appear to have been haunted by scenes from the film for many years, without being able to identify the film itself. Certain scenes are regarded with some unease or horror, possibly even casting doubt on whether the film is suitable for children, although its overall style seems to suggest that it was conceived as a children's film.
and the other in English
. The Afrikaans version appeared in 1969 under the title Dirkie, and the English version appeared in either 1969 or 1970 (possibly according to which country) under the title Dirkie Lost in the Desert, which was sometimes referred to and marketed as Lost in the Desert, which is possibly an alternative official title for the English version.
The film was released on DVD in 2005 (copyright 1999), and this disc contains both versions of the film, selectable from the front menu. The English version is about 70 minutes long, and the Afrikaans version rather shorter.
Most of the scenes are exactly the same in both versions, but both contain a few scenes which are not included in the other. For example, the Afrikaans version starts with a scene showing Dirkie's father Anton Hayes, who is a concert pianist, playing Frédéric Chopin
's Fantaisie-Impromptu
in C-sharp minor, Op. 66 (posth.) before an audience. Instead of this, the English version substitutes some panoramic scenes from the Kalahari Desert
(the setting for most of the story), with an announcer narrating a brief history of the desert. One possible reason for this difference might be that the director may have thought that an English-speaking audience might find a little introductory information about the Kalahari Desert useful, but that an Afrikaans audience might find it superfluous. The opening concert scene in the Afrikaans version adds nothing to the story beyond establishing the fact that Dirkie's father is a concert pianist.
Also, the presence or absence of music during a prominent scene early in the film differs between the two versions.
There are also a few very brief scenes, some only of seconds' duration, that are in one version of the film but not the other. However, overall the Afrikaans version is significantly shorter, thus suggesting that the English one may be more "complete".
One account of the film in discussion forums suggests that, in the 2005 re-release of the film on DVD, the reason for the Afrikaans version being shorter might be that the last reel of this version was lost and so the film was simply truncated on DVD, thus accounting for its reportedly abrupt ending.
There were minor changes in the storyline that suits the local Audience and few songs added. Overall the performance of the protagonist is really good in the remake as well.
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
n film from 1969/1970, written and directed by Jamie Uys
Jamie Uys
Jacobus Johannes Uys , better known as Jamie Uys, was a South African film director.-Early life:Prior to his foray into film, Uys was a math teacher in his hometown of Boksburg. He then married Hettie, a fellow math teacher and the couple started farming and opening trading posts along the Palala...
, who also directed the better-known The Gods Must Be Crazy
The Gods Must Be Crazy
The Gods Must Be Crazy is a 1980 film, written and directed by Jamie Uys. The film is the first in The Gods Must Be Crazy series of films. Set in Botswana and South Africa, it tells the story of Xi, a Sho of the Kalahari Desert whose band has no knowledge of the world beyond...
. Prominent roles were played by Wynand Uys as Dirkie Hayes (the young boy who is the central character), Jamie Uys as Anton Hayes (Dirkie's father), and Pieter Hauptfleisch as Uncle Pete (Dirkie's uncle). Wynand Uys is Jamie Uys's son in real life as well as in the acted roles in the film.
Some sources, such as lists of film credits and advertising posters, gave Jamie Uys's name as Jamie Hayes (in both roles, as director and actor of Anton Hayes' part), and also gave Wynand Uys's name as Dirkie Hayes, thus making the boy actor's name appear to be the same as the part he is acting. However, the DVD re-issue gives the real names.
There is also disagreement amongst these sources about whether the English-language version appeared in 1969 or 1970. This discrepancy may possibly be due to different release dates in different English-speaking countries, although complete certainty about this does not seem to be available.
Plot
The story is about a young boy, Dirkie, who is flying with his Uncle Pete across the Kalahari DesertKalahari Desert
The Kalahari Desert is a large semi-arid sandy savannah in Southern Africa extending , covering much of Botswana and parts of Namibia and South Africa, as semi-desert, with huge tracts of excellent grazing after good rains. The Kalahari supports more animals and plants than a true desert...
in a small plane
Light aircraft
A light aircraft is an aircraft that has a maximum gross take-off weight of or less.Many aircraft used commercially for freight, sightseeing, photography and scheduled flights are light aircraft.Examples of light aircraft include:...
, pilot
Aviator
An aviator is a person who flies an aircraft. The first recorded use of the term was in 1887, as a variation of 'aviation', from the Latin avis , coined in 1863 by G. de la Landelle in Aviation Ou Navigation Aérienne...
ed by Uncle Pete, who partway into the flight has a heart attack
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
and partially loses control of the plane. Thanks to his struggles to land safely in the desert even while suffering the heart attack, the crash is not as serious as it might have been otherwise, and, while Pete himself dies, Dirkie and his small pet dog survive, and the bulk of the story follows Dirkie's various adventures while he struggles to survive the harsh desert conditions, including an encounter with Kalahari Desert Bushmen
Bushmen
The indigenous people of Southern Africa, whose territory spans most areas of South Africa, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Mozambique, Swaziland, Botswana, Namibia, and Angola, are variously referred to as Bushmen, San, Sho, Barwa, Kung, or Khwe...
, who give him help, but abandon him after an unfortunate misunderstanding concerning Dirkie's dog.
The story switches several times to Dirkie's father Anton Hayes (played by Jamie Uys the director himself) and follows his increasingly desperate efforts to locate his son, including having a couple of million leaflets specially printed and spread over the desert from a plane, containing instructions for Dirkie on how to survive in the desert, and assuring him that his father loves him and won't give up trying to rescue him. The film features the unusual technique of showing Anton playing the piano, then switching to Dirkie in the desert while continuing to use the piano music as background music for the following desert scenes.
Ultimately Anton travels to the Kalahari Desert himself after everything else fails to make progress. (He has had to mortgage his house to pay for the expenses of finding Dirkie after a newspaper backs out of an earlier offer to assist with expenses.) In the desert, he meets one of the Bushmen who had earlier met Dirkie, and gets information about the direction Dirkie was last seen going in, and he is finally able to find Dirkie, who looks as if he is close to death. His dog is still with him, although injured. The film ends with Dirkie (unconscious) in his father's arms, together with his little dog (still alert), both being carried back to the vehicle his father had travelled there in.
The DVD re-issue states that the film is based on a true story.
Music
Music plays a very important role in this film, especially classical piano music resulting from Dirkie's father being a concert pianist. Classical piano music is used several times in the film's soundtrack: particularly compositions by Franz LisztFranz Liszt
Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...
and Frédéric Chopin
Frédéric Chopin
Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....
, to the point that Liszt's Liebestraum
Liebesträume
Liebesträume , is a set of three solo piano works by Franz Liszt, published in 1850. Liszt called each of the three pieces Liebesträume, but often they are referred to incorrectly in the singular as Liebestraum...
no. 3 in A-flat major (S./G. 541, R. 211, no. 3) and Chopin's Polonaise no. 6 in A-flat major, op. 53 ("Polonaise héroïque") almost become de facto themes for the film.
Some of the climactic portions of the Liebestraum form a sweeping sonic backdrop to early scenes in the desert (before the crash landing), showing a lunch stop in the empty desert and then taking off and resuming the flight.
There is a striking and emotionally intense scene in which Dirkie's father is practising the Polonaise at home and his worry about Dirkie causes him to have a sudden emotional breakdown, in which he interrupts his playing by hitting the piano's keyboard angrily with his fists and producing loud crashing discords.
In addition, the very opening scene of the actual story (after the differing introductions to the two versions of the film) shows Dirkie and his father playing Chopsticks
Chopsticks (music)
"Chopsticks" is a simple, extremely well known waltz for the piano. It was written in 1877 by the British composer Euphemia Allen under the pseudonym Arthur de Lulli...
together on the piano as a duet.
Other than classical pieces, original music for the film was composed by Art Heatley, William Loose, and Sam Sklair. One German web site also credits Gilbert Gibson as another composer for the film. However, the DVD credits only Sklair for original music.
Please be aware that the Australian Jazz singer Edwin Duff (B 3 June 1928) is credited in the end titles as singing the main (and original) theme of the movie. This music is not on the versions of Dirkie remaining such as the DVD. The original Dirkie includes an original theme sung by this excellent singer (whose style is similar to Matt Monro).
Reactions
The film was not widely available for many years after its original release, but discussions on film-related forums and personal blogBlog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
s show that aspects of the film are remembered very vividly and with horror by those who saw it as children. It seems to have struck a particular chord in the UK, where it was released in cinemas as a double-bill with The Golden Voyage of Sinbad
The Golden Voyage of Sinbad
The Golden Voyage of Sinbad is a fantasy film released in 1974 and starring John Phillip Law as Sinbad. It includes a score by composer Miklós Rózsa and is known mostly for the stop-motion effects by Ray Harryhausen...
in 1974.
Discussions and memories of the film posted online suggest that viewers appear to have been haunted by scenes from the film for many years, without being able to identify the film itself. Certain scenes are regarded with some unease or horror, possibly even casting doubt on whether the film is suitable for children, although its overall style seems to suggest that it was conceived as a children's film.
Differences between the two language versions
Lost in the Desert was shot in two versions, one in AfrikaansAfrikaans
Afrikaans is a West Germanic language, spoken natively in South Africa and Namibia. It is a daughter language of Dutch, originating in its 17th century dialects, collectively referred to as Cape Dutch .Afrikaans is a daughter language of Dutch; see , , , , , .Afrikaans was historically called Cape...
and the other in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
. The Afrikaans version appeared in 1969 under the title Dirkie, and the English version appeared in either 1969 or 1970 (possibly according to which country) under the title Dirkie Lost in the Desert, which was sometimes referred to and marketed as Lost in the Desert, which is possibly an alternative official title for the English version.
The film was released on DVD in 2005 (copyright 1999), and this disc contains both versions of the film, selectable from the front menu. The English version is about 70 minutes long, and the Afrikaans version rather shorter.
Most of the scenes are exactly the same in both versions, but both contain a few scenes which are not included in the other. For example, the Afrikaans version starts with a scene showing Dirkie's father Anton Hayes, who is a concert pianist, playing Frédéric Chopin
Frédéric Chopin
Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....
's Fantaisie-Impromptu
Fantaisie-Impromptu
Frédéric Chopin's Fantaisie-Impromptu in C-sharp minor, Op. posth. 66, is a solo piano composition and one of his best-known pieces. It was composed in 1834 and dedicated to Julian Fontana, who published the piece in spite of Chopin's request not to do so....
in C-sharp minor, Op. 66 (posth.) before an audience. Instead of this, the English version substitutes some panoramic scenes from the Kalahari Desert
Kalahari Desert
The Kalahari Desert is a large semi-arid sandy savannah in Southern Africa extending , covering much of Botswana and parts of Namibia and South Africa, as semi-desert, with huge tracts of excellent grazing after good rains. The Kalahari supports more animals and plants than a true desert...
(the setting for most of the story), with an announcer narrating a brief history of the desert. One possible reason for this difference might be that the director may have thought that an English-speaking audience might find a little introductory information about the Kalahari Desert useful, but that an Afrikaans audience might find it superfluous. The opening concert scene in the Afrikaans version adds nothing to the story beyond establishing the fact that Dirkie's father is a concert pianist.
Also, the presence or absence of music during a prominent scene early in the film differs between the two versions.
There are also a few very brief scenes, some only of seconds' duration, that are in one version of the film but not the other. However, overall the Afrikaans version is significantly shorter, thus suggesting that the English one may be more "complete".
One account of the film in discussion forums suggests that, in the 2005 re-release of the film on DVD, the reason for the Afrikaans version being shorter might be that the last reel of this version was lost and so the film was simply truncated on DVD, thus accounting for its reportedly abrupt ending.
Telugu remake
A hugely popular remake was made in Telugu, A South Indian language in 1972 with the name Papam PasivaduPapam Pasivadu
Papam Pasivadu is a 1972 Telugu film directed by V. Ramachandra Rao. It is remake of South African film Lost in the Desert directed by Jamie Uys.-The plot:...
There were minor changes in the storyline that suits the local Audience and few songs added. Overall the performance of the protagonist is really good in the remake as well.
External links
- Dirkie at IMDB