Dark River (1990)

On the banks of a river flowing through the lowlands of Africa the British have set up a colony, England in the sun, England as a Utopia, England 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. Colonial Dispatches 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.