Killing Heat

Killing Heat
Killing Heat
	English-language release
Directed by	Michael Raeburn
Written by	Doris Lessing; Michael Raeburn
Based on	The Grass is Singing; by Doris Lessing
Produced by	Mark Forstater; Catharina Stackelberg
Starring	Karen Black; John Thaw; John Kani; Patrick Mynhardt; John Moulder-Brown; Margaret Heale
Cinematography	Bille August
Edited by	Thomas Schwalm
Music by	Lasse Dahlberg; Björn Isfält
Distributed by	Chibote; Swedish Film Institute
Release date	2 September 1982 (Australia);
Running time	105 minutes
Countries	Sweden; Australia; Zambia
Language	English

Killing Heat (released in Sweden as Gräset sjunger) is a 1981 film based on Doris Lessing's 1950 novel The Grass Is Singing. It stars Karen Black and John Thaw and was filmed in Zambia and Sweden. The film was released in Zimbabwe as The Grass is Singing.

Plot

The film takes place in apartheid-era South Africa in the 1960s (unlike the novel which was set in Southern Rhodesia). Mary, a city woman, marries a farmer named Dick Turner. Mary leaves the comfortable familiarity of her urban life and goes to live on Dick's struggling farm. Mary has little experience handling Africans as servants or employees and is harsh and tactless in her treatment of the African farm workers. Mary runs away by herself (to the town of Livingstone, crossing the bridge at Victoria Falls by train—which takes her into what was pre-1964 Northern Rhodesia), only to find that she cannot get her old job back, and has nowhere to take permanent refuge and no means of financial support. She returns to the farm. Mary slowly becomes insane and breaks the Rhodesian taboo of inter-racial over-familiarity with the African houseboy, Moses. After Mary and Moses are accidentally observed by a newly appointed farm manager in the act of taking what would be considered liberties, Dick decides to send Mary away from the farm. Learning of Mary's forthcoming departure, Moses murders Mary during a rainstorm. Moses is arrested by the police and led off in handcuffs.^[1]