Reviews

Angels in the Dust

A documentary of differences

By NINA MACLAUGHLIN | October 3, 2007

3.0 Stars

VIDEO: Watch the trailer for Angels in the Dust.

The tagline of Louise Hogarth’s honest, moving documentary asks, “Can one person make a difference?” The answer is a resounding yes when it comes to Marion Cloete, who with her husband, Con, runs an orphanage in South Africa peopled with hundreds of kids whose parents are dying or have died of AIDS. Cloete is a fierce and loving figure, a ferocious defender of her many children, half of whom are infected as well. The facts are grim: rape, particularly of young girls, is widespread as the result of the belief that having sex with a virgin cures AIDS. Parents prostitute their daughters. Olive oil and garlic are recommended on the front page of the newspaper as valid cures. Cloete acts as teacher and healer; she helps the children confront the death around them, and she gives them hope. Amid it all, the kids are kids: they dance and play and laugh, while not far from their mini-village lie acres and acres of graves.

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[ 05/26 ] "2012 RISD Graduate Thesis Exhibition" @ Rhode Island Convention Center

ARTICLES BY NINA MACLAUGHLIN

ON CARPENTRY AND COLLEGE | October 20, 2011
Age 30, I quit the Phoenix and ended up with a job as an apprentice to a carpenter. Sawing, chiseling, hammering, nail-gunning, tiling, sanding, slotting, framing, hauling, measuring, and sweeping are less obvious outcomes of an undergraduate career in the liberal arts. College, in strange and unexpected ways, prepared me for this sort of work. And in others, did not prepare me at all.

PHDISASTERS | April 27, 2011
I knew a man pursuing a PhD in literature. His dissertation had to do with humor as a form of dissent in 20th-century literature. And how enthused he was at first! How passionate and excited.

DAVID FOSTER WALLACE'S THE PALE KING | April 13, 2011
All I can do is tell you how I read the book.

THE HOUSE THAT HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG BUILT | February 25, 2011
Andre Dubus III collected me at the Newburyport train station last month when the snow piles were already high. We stopped first for a coffee for the road; he asked all the questions: siblings, hometown, are you married?

DON'T BE AN IDIOT | January 27, 2011
We're all idiots when we're 18. We're all idiots for the first half of our 20s, and longer, for some. By saying so, we're not trying to insult anyone.