The Gods Must Be Crazy (1980)

One tagline for this film reads “An epic comedy of absurd proportions.” While the journey the film recounts may very well be epic, the comedy isn’t quite as absurd as advertised. Nevertheless, The Gods Must Be Crazy is an enjoyable and endearing film.

There’s three parts to the story: an African bushman named Xixo embarks on a quest to rid his village of a trinket believed to have been sent to them by the gods (in actuality a Coke bottle dropped out of an airplane). At the same time, a bumbling research scientist develops a crush on the local town’s new schoolteacher. Finally, a group of terrorist-led guerrillas are on the run after they botch a coup attempt.

All of these plot lines intersect in a variety of humorous ways. There is no vulgar comedy here. Instead, The Gods Must Be Crazy draws laughs from fish-out-of-water slapstick, awkward everyman bumbling, a few over the top sequences and some good old-fashioned dry, witty one-liners.

Most notable about this film is the portrayal of the lead character Xixo. The part is played by a real bushman who had virtually no exposure to the “civilized white world” before working on the film. The director found him in the bush and liked his expressions and genuine curiosity with all the trivialities that “civilized” people get hung up on. This genuineness shows right through on film and the character grows on you quite a bit.

His curiosity and lack of knowledge of “civilized” ways leads to much of the humor and also serves as an amusing poke at what we call society. Xixo doesn’t understand much about white people and their peculiar ways and thinks much of what goes on is unnecessary and silly. It sort of hearkens back to a simpler time and does a fantastic job of showing viewers just how absurd we really are sometimes.

A number of people believe this film to be racist because of its depiction of bushmen as uncultured savages, as well as the fact that it was made and funded by a South African film company (at the time, South Africa was still ruled by the racist and segregationist apartheid system of government). Granted, the click language used by the bushmen is dubbed over by a much more simplified series of clicking noises, but I rather enjoyed the culture clash and portrayal of “white society” as being filled with things that, while designed to ease our lives, only serve to complicate things. I would say this film is mostly harmless in terms of its racial implications.

There are parts that drag on a tad too long, but the overall story is too unique to pass up. I guarantee that you will never find another film that evokes comedy and culture quite in the same way as The Gods Must Be Crazy.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5