Jamie Uys’s The Gods Must Be Crazy (1980)

Jamie Uys’s The Gods Must Be Crazy opens in anthropological documentary format, with a voice-over narrating the commonalities of daily life in the Kalahari desert. But it is important to remember you are watching a work of fiction. And a sly one at that.

In many ways, we can see The Gods Must Be Crazy as an allegory, a figurative form of storytelling in which we look past the literal to the figurative. Critics complain that even when the film was made in 1980, innocent groups of Bushmen no longer existed, as the modern world had encroached on and changed their nomadic, hunter/gatherer society in significant ways, but they’re missing the point, possibly because of the faux-documentary style of the beginning. The point is to establish a group of characters whose existence is defined by complete innocence – they have no sense of evil, no superfluous elements in their lives, nothing that seems without purpose, no conflict. It is an Edenic existence, and therefore resistant to literal readings.

Uys clearly wants to contrast this innocence with the “civilized” world, and he does so for satiric purposes. Keep your eyes open for deadpan sarcastic contrasts between the language describing what you see and what is actually going on.

The movie really gets going when the two civilizations collide, and the collision comes in the form of a Coke bottle. Again, in an allegorical way, the bottle represents not only the “civilized” world from which it comes, but the evil that results from that object’s incursion into the Bushmen’s society. It could also represent the absurdity of consumerism. Or it could be technological advancement; the scene in which the Bushmen find inventive uses for the bottle is incredible. Or it could represent the apocalypse (we just had to throw that in). As we recognize the many different interpretations one can take of this Coke bottle, it becomes obvious that Uys is using it more symbolically than literally.

So there’s lots to think about here, but that’s just one aspect of this remarkable little film. We hope you’ll enjoy its gentle comedy, while not missing its biting satire. And that you’ll take pleasure in its style, which shifts throughout the film. Uys used actual Bushmen, including Namibian farmer N!xau (as Xi) who had not acted before his involvement in this film. (The exclamation point in his name represents the clicking sound the Bushmen use in their language – listen for it in the movie.) It’s often hard because of the documentary style, the realism of the mise en scene, the dubbing of certain characters, and the rawness of the filming and editing to see what’s going on as a carefully crafted film experience.

As America moved away from the realism of 1970s’ films and into a period of film-making evidenced by highly polished techniques and looks, The Gods Must Be Crazy, a South African film, provided a refreshing, unassuming, and charming alternative when it was released in America in 1984. (It ranked 29^th in domestic gross at 30 million dollars; Beverly Hills Cop was the top.) Perhaps movie-goers were drawn in by the film’s thought-provoking commentary on the craziness of modern society. Or perhaps they just enjoyed its off-beat humor. Whatever made it one of the top 30 films of that year, it retains those qualities today and is still an example of Must-See World Cinema.

R. Findlay
Film Club Adviser