The Locusts (1997)

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freeboson (Mumbai India) | 04/15/2006 |
The Locusts --- a tragedy drama

This is a great drama for a lazy evening in the style of

Tennessee Williams and Eugene O'Neill. It shocks and

it also redeems. Delilah Potts is a woman driven towards

a tragedy by her own impulses. Clay Hewitt is a dashing

new farm hand arrived from the city. He smashes through

Delilah's self woven arrangement which are shrouding her

dark past but keeping alive its palpable memories permitting

her to wallow in them.



Somewhat reminiscent of "One Flew Over of the Cuckoo's

nest", Clay Hewitt sets out to dismantle these sorry legacies

and in particular cutivates Potts's mentally ill son with a warm

male camaraderie. And this is where the troubles start because

it begins to lift the lid on the suppressed secrets of the Farm, not

without at the same time explosing Clay to the divulgence of

the dark secret for whcih he is absconding from the city.

The scenes of her muted son "Flyboy" serving dinner at the

table like a servant are reminiscent of Brothers Karamazov.



The raw sexuality depicted is not as jarring as the gruesom

operations of a farm with bulls and steers and Madam Potts

demonsrtates that she is away from the operations only out

of choice and not becasue she is too dainty to handle the chores.

Overall the movie conveys the claustrophobic atmosphere of

a farm in the backwaters gone awry due to its isolation from

civilization and its whimzical tragic heroine. Her sexual appetite

and boorish drinking habit are easily understood as the demonstration

of power. The earthy sexuality of the younger characters contrasts

with this for its natural and carefree nature. It provides the backdrop

for the return of the deranged and tormented son to real life. The play

juxtaposes the two possible human uses of sexuality, that for exploitation

and that for rejuvenates and redemption.



But Mrs Potts is past redemption and the story spirals to its tragic

end somewhat predictably but heroically nonetheless. Clay carries

no moral guilt and nor is he going to at any stage give up the cause

of young Potts whom he has taken under his wing.

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