clanciai Review of A Twist of Sand

A Twist of Sand (1968)

Struggle for life and death and vanity in the qualms of Kalahari

[8/10 · 7 January 2018]

This film is like a moral sermon of vanity, but at the same time it's a thrilling adventure constantly getting screwed up. Perhaps the most interesting performance is by Peter Vaughan as the mentally unstable Johann who doesn't speak at all but only mumbles some German occasionally, and his acting is well worth observing carefully, as he is the key to the developing tragedy. Richard Johnson is reliable as usual, he repeats his feat as leader of a miscellanous party risking their lives, like in "The Haunting" five years earlier, but here they are facing all the atrocities of nature in the burning waste of the Kalahari with sand storms and other unexpected terrors of the sands, which brings out the worst in them. The most interesting and thrilling sequence though is the perilous cruise through the shallows of the Skeleton Coast. Honor Blackman is as tough a girl as ever, Roy Dotrice is the most sympathetic of the party and comes to unfairly suffer the most, while Jeremy Kemp is enigmatical and unpredictable as usual. All these five male actors appear to still be living today although they were all above 40 at the time of the film. It's not a bad story, it gives you plenty of reason for afterthought, it's a curiosity of an adventure film with an impressing struggle with destiny, which as always wins in the end over the weakness of human vanity, but.at least there are some survivors.