{"id":4195,"date":"2024-09-28T20:06:18","date_gmt":"2024-09-28T20:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=4195"},"modified":"2024-10-12T22:14:47","modified_gmt":"2024-10-12T22:14:47","slug":"the-gods-must-be-crazy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/09\/28\/the-gods-must-be-crazy\/","title":{"rendered":"The Gods Must Be Crazy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Gods Must Be Crazy <\/strong>(1984)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 20th<\/sup> Century Fox\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 109 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (language, comic violence, tribal nudity)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Jamie Uys\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Jamie Uys\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: John Boshoff\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Buster Reynolds and Robert Lewis\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: October 26, 1984 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: N!xau, Marius Weyers, Sandra Prinsloo, Michael Thys, Louw Verwey, Nic de Jager.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $90M (World)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Dubbed in English from Afrikaans, !Kung and Tswana <\/strong><\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0The South African-made comedy The Gods Must Be Crazy<\/strong> played for a year at the Ritz Five here in Philadelphia. This was a few years before I became a regular at the city\u2019s most prestigious arthouse theater. Being the son of parents terrified by the prospect of traveling into the big bad city for any reason, I didn\u2019t get to see it until it came out on video in November 1986. At the time, I didn\u2019t fully appreciate what a comic treasure The Gods Must Be Crazy<\/strong> truly is. It wasn\u2019t until I rewatched it this past week that I saw its brilliance. It\u2019s part National Geographic documentary, part Three Stooges comedy and part observation of the dichotomy between humanity and nature. When taken as a whole, The Gods Must Be Crazy<\/strong> is a movie unlike any you\u2019ve ever seen.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Written and directed by Jamie Uys (Dingaka), The Gods Must Be Crazy<\/strong> starts off with a narrator describing the daily existence of a tribe of Bushmen in the Kalahari Desert. He talks about their peaceful lives unencumbered by crime, money or private ownership. They live simply off the land and get along well. This all changes when a Coke bottle dropped by a pilot lands near their village. It\u2019s found by a little Bushman named Xi (N!xau) who takes it back to his tribe. They\u2019ve never seen anything like it. They assume it\u2019s a gift from the gods. It\u2019s harder than any substance they\u2019ve ever come across. It can be put to many uses- e.g. cooking utensil, snake skin smoother, musical instrument, tool, etc. The problem is there\u2019s just one. Soon it creates problems within the tribe. For the first time, they experience things like envy, greed and violence. The only solution, as they see it, is to return it to the gods. To do that, Xi will have to journey to the edge of the earth and throw it away.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Meanwhile in civilization (presumably Johannesburg), journalist Kate Thompson (Prinsloo, Deadly Jaws) has had it with chaotic city life. She takes a job as a schoolteacher in Botswana where\u2019s she met at the bus stop by microbiologist Andrew Steyn (Weyers, DeepStar Six), a sweet but clumsy oaf who makes a bloody fool of himself every time he\u2019s around her. He picks her up in a jeep with no brakes. It leads to a series of great sight gags that culminates with the jeep up a tree. Adding to the confusion is a band of guerrillas led by incompetent buffoon Sam Boga (Verwey) fleeing the area after a failed assassination attempt on the country\u2019s president. In the midst of it all is sweet, na\u00efve Xi who gets pulled into the madness.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Much of the humor in The Gods Must Be Crazy<\/strong> comes from Xi\u2019s misunderstanding of so-called civilization. He approaches situations thinking like a Bushman. He has no preconceived notions of Western society. All of his actions are based on what he feels are logical conclusions. When the outcome isn\u2019t what he expects, that\u2019s when he gets into trouble. Of course, the slapstick is also hilarious. Andrew is attracted to Kate, but can\u2019t get it together in front of her. When he tries to save her from a stampeding rhino, she thinks he\u2019s making a sexual advance. He tries to explain that rhinos are naturally inclined to stamp out fires, but she thinks he\u2019s making it up. This gets a bit redundant after a while but that is the only fault I can find with The Gods Must Be Crazy<\/strong> and since it\u2019s a minor one, it\u2019s okay.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The Gods Must Be Crazy<\/strong> is still the most successful South African movie to be released in the US. One of the great things about it is that it doesn\u2019t even attempt to address the issue of apartheid, a hot-button topic in the 80s. This is due in part to the movie taking place in a part of South Africa where blacks and whites live and work together side by side. It\u2019s also because I suspect Uys didn\u2019t want to weigh down his movie with some important political message. Either way, it makes for a pleasurable viewing experience. It has the look of a low-budget project especially with its use of dubbing instead of subtitles. For scenes involving Xi and his tribe, a voiceover translates their language which consists of a lot of clicks (the \u201c!\u201d in N!xau\u2019s name represents a click). Xi has a natural, unaffected screen presence. He never comes off as ignorant or dumb. He\u2019s a sweet little man uncorrupted by modern society. The rest of the cast does a fine job. Weyers and Prinsloo have nice comic chemistry.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The scenery in The Gods Must Be Crazy<\/strong> is gorgeous especially the shots of God\u2019s Window at the end. The cinematography by Buster Reynolds and Robert Lewis is also quite good. Uys shoots a lot of The Gods Must Be Crazy<\/strong> with the film slightly speeded-up. It gives the movie\u2019s comic energy a nice boost. I also like how he contrasts Xi\u2019s simple way of life with our complicated one. Even though The Gods Must Be Crazy<\/strong> technically came before it (it was made in 1980), it recalls Koyaanisqatsi in that respect. It really is a brilliant little movie. That it\u2019s also very funny is a sweet bonus. This is a movie that demands to be rediscovered by today\u2019s audiences. It\u2019s a reminder that not all comedies have to be cynical, crude and loud. Sometimes quiet, genial humor makes the bigger impact.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Gods Must Be Crazy (1984)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 20th Century Fox\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 109 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (language, comic violence, tribal nudity)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Jamie Uys\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Jamie Uys\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: John Boshoff\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Buster Reynolds and Robert Lewis\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: October 26, 1984 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: N!xau, Marius Weyers, Sandra Prinsloo, Michael Thys, Louw Verwey, Nic de Jager.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5421,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-thats-some-funny-stuff"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/The-Gods-Must-Be-Crazy-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4195"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5424,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4195\/revisions\/5424"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}