Relaxinbc.com

There is a little beetle, for example, that catches the condensation from the coastal fog on its wings each morning before the heat disperses it, then lets the drips trickle into its mouth. The brain of the large antelope, the oryx, is irrigated by a special network of veins that enables it to survive the hottest of temperatures. There are also moles, hyenas, Springbok deer and ostriches that have developed extraordinary anatomical features to survive. But German horses? Could they survive there? And - equally important, from my point of view - what about humans?In Windhoek I was told all sorts of horror stories about the desert: about men being devoured by hyenas as they slept beneath the stars, and about stalking leopards, and scorpions, and the merciless heat.

None the less, it was not unheard of for explorers - or government-sponsored rangers - to venture in there, and, since much of the area in question was no longer a restricted zone, the Ministry for the Protection of Wildlife assigned me a guide, Wilfried, who drove me into the desert.After some 120 miles of dusty, featureless track, Wilfried set me down, on a hill a short distance from the watering-place where the previous sighting had occurred, and helped me to set up camp. We were not far from the road, but in Namibia that means little: the road was miles from anywhere. Then Wilfried drove off, leaving me alone in the land of nothing. Apprehensively, but feeling too excited to be properly afraid, I settled down for the night.A distant rumbling woke me. The horses were coming! The shades of night disappeared before them An entire family was galloping across the vast sandy plain. I grabbed my binoculars and gazed, rapt: their shaggy silhouettes stood out against the sand, as if carved from the wind thrown up by their hooves. They seemed to be rough, powerful beasts, with shining, stretching muscles and long tangled manes, careering along in a wild gallop, the sand spurting from beneath their hooves in golden showers Suddenly, they halted They had seen me: a stranger had entered their desert.

Then, after a pause, they were off again, until, a few metres from the watering-place - which turned out to be the remains of an old man-made trough - they halted, as one. Their goal had been reached.As they began to drink, more horses began to arrive, from all around. Soon there were 30 of them trying to get to the water, jostling and pushing The dominant males tried to herd their mares An inquisitive young horse came a little too close The head of the family came charging up with a haughty air. There was much kicking and jostling; then the young horse, which was about three years old, retreated, head lowered as a sign of submission. Shortly afterwards, a sudden cry interrupted the general neighing. A chestnut foal with four white ankles was desperately turning in all directions. Its mother came up, pushed it close to her and, her feet planted firmly in the sand, presented her teat.The scene exceeded my wildest expectations; and, in the days that followed - and on the numerous subsequent trips to the desert I have made in the past four years - there was much more to come.In my neutral-coloured clothing, I would wait for the horses to appear, posted on my promontory beside the camp Around 50 of them usually came each day.

At first I thought they were all bays, but this turned out to be a mistake. It was just that, from where I stood, the glaring white light wiped out any colours I also had a tendency to magnify their size. This is a formidable debut for Manchevski, who wrote the film as well as directed it But he has now left Yugoslavia for America. Manchevski strikes to the bleeding heart of the civil war.Praise must go to Manuel Teran's grimly beautiful photography and the music of Anastasia, a mixture of mournfully tribalist choral singing and pipes whose sprightliness seems doom-laden. The hatred will go on repeating itself, so long as the bad blood goes on coursing round human beings. To explain this further would be to give away some of the film's shocks. Suffice it to say that most of the key killings of the film are not religious, but take place within families: a brother murders his sister; a cousin shoots his cousin.

The circle is not round." History, for Manchevski, does have a savage circularity. "It's a circus." The film suggests there's a complicity in the media's voyeurism.Manchevski ends the film with the same violence with which he began it, as if to refute the wisdom of an elderly monk at the beginning: "Time never dies. "I see." "You just watch." The glancing contempt that is at the heart of photography is illustrated by the shots of Macedonia from the photographer's coach as he leaves the airport "The world is watching," complains the same relation. The photographer stands for the media's uncomprehending prurience. "D'you see what's happening to our people?" a relation asks him.