German title: Shadrach – Die Heimkehr des Fremden Russian title: Шадрак Original title: Shadrach
Drama – USA Production year: 1997 Movie length: 80 minutes
Director: Susanna Styron Writer: William Styron, Susanna Styron, Bridget Terry Cinematograph: Hiro Narita Music: Van Dyke Parks
Movie description:
In the summer of 1935, lonely young Paul, with his strict father and fatally ill mother, is raised in a boring, middle-class way of life, so mundane it leads him into a friendship with the lower-class Dabneys, once aristocratic but now reduced to poverty on the former Dabney plantation. Bootlegger Vernon is married to earthy beer-drinking Trixie, and Paul enjoys the fun-loving lifestyle of this couple and their seven children. Shadrach, a 99-year-old former slave, turns up one day at the Dabney house after walking barefoot from Alabama to Virginia, where he was born into slavery. Since Shadrach’s wish to be buried on the Dabney’s land violates Virginia law, the request sets a variety of racist attitudes and conflicts into motion.