Bert Deling's surreal, button-pushing and hallucinogenic paean to the emerging possibilities of avant-garde and homemade filmmaking. Telling the tale of a violent ex-cop searching for the man who killed his partner, the film takes an unexpected turn when he encounters drug lord Plastic Man and a tribe of LSD enthusiasts. What follows is both literal and metaphorical mayhem as the boundaries of the film start collapsing and our idea of what's real is pushed to its very limits.
Direction
Deling weaponizes zero budget into Brechtian chaos.
Editing
The film literally unravels before your eyes.
Acting
Peter Cummins as Plastic Man: unhinged, unforgettable.
Director
Bert Deling
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Made for roughly $6,000 AUD, Dalmas became a totem of Australian underground cinema and rarely screened outside archival circles.
Deling deliberately cast non-actors in key roles and encouraged them to forget their lines, accelerating the film's disintegration of fiction.
US
AU
