The Gods Must Be Crazy

Peter McGinn

This is another one of those older movies my wife and I watched together over twenty years ago, and then recently watched again. We enjoyed it just as much as we did the first time. I had forgotten a lot of the details, so that was actually a good thing as it wasn’t overly familiar to me, like watching Groundhog Day yet again would be. The tag line suggests that the laughs never stop, but that isn’t quite accurate. There are a lot of laugh out loud moments, mostly physical humor, and plenty of pockets of humor here and there, but there are also connecting scenes that set up the plot lines and transition from one to another. There are three main plots that thread together and keep the viewers on their toes. The writer/director apparently put in months of long days without a break putting this together, and his effort was rightly rewarded with great success at the box office. Oddly enough, I didn’t recognize any of his other work, except for the more tepid sequel to this modern classic comedy..

CinemaSerf

"Xi" (N!xau) lives with his tribe on the edge of the Kalahari desert much the way his ancestors have for generations until one of their number discovers a glass Coca-Cola bottle. We know it had recently been rather thoughtlessly chucked out of an aircraft window by it's pilot, but they think it might be a gift from the gods. It is a curious and smooth shape, and it even has it's uses for helping to cure snake skins, but gradually it becomes more of a bone of contention so "Xi" decides it's time to give it back. How, though? Well perhaps a trip to the edge of the world might be in order? Enthusiastically, off he sets and along the way encounters biologist "Steyn" (Marius Weyers); schoolteacher "Kate" (Sandra Prinsloo) and also finds himself embroiled with the manic activities of a would-be revolutionary who wants to take her and her children hostage, whilst she has to deal with the hapless and love-struck scientist who goes to pieces every time he sets eyes on her. What ensues now has something of the "Airplane" - if it can go wrong it will - to it, only this time with some added pith from dead-pan narrator Paddy O'Byrne that nicely augments a series of daft antics set amongst the wilderness and it's hungry wildlife. Sure, there are stereotypes galore but I reckoned that was the point. By taking the almost childlike perspective of "Xi", it's actually quite entertaining to look at just how the uninitiated approach the mod-con world of the "West". Some of our gadgets - like jeeps and planes - can only be compared to their nearest animal equivalents; others appear completely useless - and there's some fun to be had as he experiences things for the first time throughout his journey. This isn't presented in any kind of condescending fashion though and auteur Jamie Uys isn't trying to suggest "Xi" is a fool, merely that he compares what he sees with what he knows and often concludes that nature has already provided better than science or mankind. This is also quite keen to send up all things colonial and military too and though it is a bit on the long side, it manages to use parody to question just what does constitute "civilisation" - only in the style of a couple of episodes of "Daktari" stitched together by Laurel and Hardy. It's quirkiness makes it worth a look, but you'd need to leave your political correctness glasses outside if you're to get anything from it.