BeDevil (1993)

Australia/New Zealand | 90 min. | DVD | Dir. Tracey Moffatt

BEDEVIL is the stunning debut feature from Tracey Moffatt and the first feature directed by an Australian Aboriginal woman. Inspired by ghost stories she heard as a child from both her extended Aboriginal and Irish Australian families, Tracey Moffatt has constructed a sublime trilogy in which characters are haunted by the past and bewitched by memories. All three stories are set in Moffatt’s highly stylized, hyper-real, hyper-imaginary Australian landscape.

"Bedevil certainly features beautiful and compelling images, though these intrigue as much as they frustrate in the impossible search for a definitive meaning. Moffatt’s aesthetic choices defamiliarise the recognisable Australian landscape, combining real and fictive settings that allow for the interplay between physical and the supernatural worlds. The disorientation that this produces reminds us that we are firmly positioned as spectators. This in turn provokes a consideration of the gaze – no one vision is privileged here, especially not the viewer’s. beDevil intertwines different stories across time to emphasise the constant presence of the past. It reminds us that we are all haunted: our past follows us around, it shapes our lives and imprints on the spaces that we inhabit." -Kate Robertson (Senses of Cinema) 

This event is intended for UW-Madison students, faculty, staff and Union members and guests.