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Made for television, "The Outcast" is another variant of the (white) South African genre of passionate family conflict and
test of masculine prowess played against a background of natural beauty.
This story of three brothers, all of whom "live by the axe", is set deep in the Knysna rain forest.
The eldest toils as a timber
feller, brooding over his loveless marriage. The youngest brother, now a circus axe thrower, is on the run from the police with his wife and child. He returns to the forest; the
flames of an old affair with his brother's wife are rekindled. The middle brother, a bastard outcast also working and brooding in the forest, sees the opportunity for retribution.He returns to his father's house and foments a murderous axe-brandishing hatred between the other two.