The Gods Must Be Crazy, No. 1 - The Gods Must Be Crazy (1980)

The Gods Must Be Crazy?! I had no idea there was a sequel, let alone a franchise. But don’t ya know, there are five of ‘em. Well, I learns things doing this blog, I does…

The Gods Must Be Crazy was the great South African comedy hit of 1980. After that, the country’s international cinematic reputation fell into disrepair irreparably, until District 9. Not bad for a washed-out and shaggy fish-out-of-water comedy. But somehow, this little Africomedy managed around $100 million worldwide, which was even less to sneeze at then (a mere five years after Jaws created such records). By pure word of mouth did The Gods Must Be Crazy (okay, TGMBC) spread, attainting a cult popularity while never exactly being a major hit in any one place…apart from at home, of course.

Writer/director Jamie Uys started filmmaking in the 1970s with two Beautiful People pictures, which are actually nature documentaries. He then did Funny People, which is about people, though not Adam Sandler – that’s another Funny People. Naw, this one’s a theatrical rip-off of “Candid Camera,” and was considered the peak of South African wit at the time.

Until TGMBC blew it out of the water. Here was South African hilarity that was truly at the cutting edge, seeing as it mimics American comedy stylings of the 1920s. The film’s central thesis is to explore the humorous collision of nature and civilization, finding jocularity in a bushman’s encounters with technology, and mocking white people’s ineptitude in the wilds. One could make a case complaining about the film’s outdated noble savage depiction of the Ju’hoansi aborigines, or certain other niggling cultural details, but…is it really worth the trouble when it’s a movie which revels in head-clonking humor?

By the beginning, you’d be forgiven for thinking it another of Uys’ nature docs, as it makes extensive (and consistent) use of wild savanna animal footage. There is even a narrator (Paddy O’Bryan), who proves a bit of a gentle wit and decidedly not a scrupulously scientific documentary filmmaker.

It is this narrator who informs us ignorant audience members about life in the harsh Kalahari Desert, which the scarcity of water means no humans – but for the miniscule bushmen. By depicting these natives in their noble savagery, and their savage nobility, the narrator opines they are the most contented people on earth. It is precisely the sort of prelapsian, tit-happy scenario folk associate with National Geographic, and it’s just as much of a put-upon. While Uys used real tribesfolk for his cast, they weren’t quite as isolated as are shown here. They’d long ago abandoned hunter-gatherer for something a bit more Anno Domini. Humorously, they did not understand the sort of unga-bunga activities director Uys imagined.

Illustrating this point is the big breakout star of TGMBC, Namibian bush farmer turned inexplicable actor N!xau (yes, that exclamation point is part of his name – maybe it’s a clicking noise or something). Prior to TGMBC, he’d seen less white people in a whole lifetime than I do on an hourly basis. Lamentably, there was some confusion amongst the tribes about paper money as currency – hence the persistent rumors that Uys did not pay his cast, or that N!xau made a mere $2,000 for his starring role (shades of the Slumdog Millionaire fiasco). But in light of TGMBC as a franchise, with N!xau headlining it (a film franchise starring a pre-technological actor!), one must assume N!xau made out okay in the end…Though I can’t imagine it was the most respectful working relationship in film history.

Getting back to business – The natives’ serenity is juxtaposed by the narrator’s assessment of modern civilization, presumably Johannesburg. This is one of the film’s cleverest notions, head-clonking humor aside, as it satirically addresses the urban lifestyle in nature doc terms. “Civilized man refused to adapt himself to his environment. Instead, he adapted his environment to him.” All the narrator’s commentary, though erudite, is told from the perspective of an alien to earth – not literally, but so as to force a reassessment of what we find normal. The narrator also serves as a translator of sorts for N!xau’s hunter Xi, whose Bantu banter has more clicks in it than…let’s say a popular website.


Speaking of N!xau (or Xi, really, but I do love typing out that “!”), he has just discovered an empty Coke bottle disgorged from a passing biplane (or farting god, by the narrator’s assessment). The “thing” soon becomes the focus of Xi’s village, as it brings a number of functions – music, corn-grinding, snake-curing, latent capitalism. Ah, the gifts of civilization. And that whole capitalism thing just near destroys these innocents, whom have never before felt anger, jealousy, or hate, we’re meant to believe. Fights over the bottle, soon rechristened “The Evil Thing,” lead to some of the film’s first celebrated head-clonkings. And it’s not just any old head-clonking! The music, when it’s not eagerly aping Burt Bacharach’s Casino Royale (1966 version) soundtrack, is happily emphasizing the slapstick, much like a Mexican sitcom. It’s pretty unsophisticated, but there is stuff in here that works.

Xi takes it upon himself to be the village’s Frodo, to take The Evil Thing to the edge of the earth and hurl it away – The Evil Thing being an unwanted gift from the gods with their titular mental instability. This trek shall see Xi through the savannas, past scads of wildlife footage – some of it even interaction. This is far, far better to the lame jungle adventures of the 40s.


Meanwhile, an entirely unrelated subplot is brewing in the fictional African nation of Burani. The country’s diplomats meet when a coterie of guerilla terrorists burst into the capital for a mass assassination. It’s a comedy, folks! And judging by how footage is sped-up, like a Benny Hill routine, yup, it’s supposed to be funny. But those Africans, man, perhaps there’s something funny about political assassination over there I just don’t get. And yeah, many people die.

The terrorists flee in their Jeeps much as the Keystone Kops would – the film is one organ accompanist away from being a true silent comedy. (Actually, the best moments to come mine silent cinema quite masterfully.) But the prime sort of humor for now is the sort where the terrorists at their banana hideout proclaim “They’ll never find us.” Cut to the encroaching armed forces of this zany romp’s ersatz Idi Amin stand-in. Fun times! Then it’s time for a slapstick shootout, complete with klutzy bazooka handling that still results in many dead – including Burani’s general. This is a pretty weird movie.

The terrorists are the most pointless filmic element. They won’t really serve any point until they’re called upon to serve as villains for the Third Act. Until then, just know they’re currently fleeing to the completely non-fictional Botswana, where the rest of the tale takes place.

It’s time for yet a third unrelated story – unrelated for now. But this one’s funny, because it mocks whitey. Out in the bush is doctoral biologist Andrew Steyn (Marius Weyers, the film’s secret weapon), who makes a study of manure as it relates to migration patterns and scatological humor. Andrew is content, alongside assistant Mpudi (Michael Thys) and their malfunctioning Land Rover Mpudi lovingly refers to as “The Antichrist.” (Were it a Dodge, it would be the “Anti-Chrysler.” [Rim shot.]) Along comes a reverend (director Uys in all his glory) to request Andrew go collect the local village’s new white schoolmarm, Kate Thompson (Sandra Prinsloo), newly arrived from the city. Thus Andrew is off in the Land Rover – which has to be jump-started by a mule towing it.


Andrew’s automotive hegira is the film’s absolute highlight, and where its true 20s slapstick sensibility comes to fullest light. Here we have a situation of man vs. machine Buster Keaton would envy: a Land Rover with no brakes, which cannot be shut off, and a series of gates it must pass through which must also be opened and shut. And only Andrew to do all this. An enormous amount of humor is wrung from a gate on an upslope; Andrew must somehow chock the car as it tumbles away from him. All while a monkey watches on thoughtfully. Isolated, this section would make a perfect short subject.

(In a Keaton-inspired film featuring a Coke bottle, I’m glad they never make a Fatty Arbuckle reference.)

Andrew finally meets up with Kate, who is his very own Coke bottle – Kryptonite, I mean. The man is absolutely worthless around women, as linguistically capable as Sloth from The Goonies, and a klutz to boot. Weyers truly is a gifted physical comedian, in an era where that is largely a lost art. Thus begins the return journey, another odyssey past angry rhinoceroses and familiar gateways. The difference now is that when the Land Rover tumbles out of control, Kate is stuck inside it, completely at a loss to control this vehicle. She works for Andrew’s character, but she’s something of a bore herself.

Xi’s quest – remember Xi? – includes his first encounter with a gun. It provokes a little humor, but our noble savage is not to be a figure of humor as Andrew is (he remains in the bush, so this fish is barely out of water at all).

Andrew, in his inestimable competency, has stranded the accursed Land Rover in a hippo-ridden stream, forcing Kate and himself to bed down for the night. And Kate’s a city slicker, and a bit – careful, be polite here – high maintenance to boot. So it all plays out like Willie’s campfire scene from Temple of Doom, only not 1/100th as grating. And in charges a rhino, keen to put out Andrew’s fire – that’s not a euphemism. Rhinos: they’re the fire chiefs of the savanna. It’s just like something I once did at a college party full of arsonists (this was back when I was actively firefighting). But somehow, the sudden presence of a rhinoceros convinces Kate that Andrew might be a pervert – trust me, it sorta makes sense on film.


Come daytime, Andrew sets to work winching the Land Rover out of the river via tree branch, while Kate sets to work clothing herself. (Ah, the division of labor.) She gets caught up in a tree, in a moment that strangely mixes gleeful slapstick and body horror, distracting Andrew long enough for the car to rise up off the ground. “Ay yay yay yay yay,” Andrew says, this film’s catch phrase, as he departs to retrieve the Antichrist.

Him gone, Xi arrives, beholding Kate – in the narrator’s terms, the ugliest person he’s ever met, for her pale skin and blonde hair. I know, what a freak! (Ah, but that’s called “comic juxtaposition.”) And when Kate, whom Xi takes for a god, will not comply with his clicks concerning The Evil Thing, Xi toddles on off, deciding that she may not be a god after all. I’m glad they didn’t make Caucasian divinity a running gag.


Andrew gets the Land Rover running!...by having Mpudi tow it with a go-kart. And in an African nation full of the oddest vehicles you’ll ever see outside of a Kia showroom, would you guess Andrew’s macho romantic rival would show up in that van-like monstrosity in the upper left there? It’s “great white hunter” Jack Hind (Mick Jagger…I’m sorry, Nic de Jager), who sweeps Kate off her feet and whisks her off in the great van thing. Her scenes bitching about Andrew are paralleled with Andrew pining hopelessly for Kate.

Growing even hornier in forced seclusion with shriveled old Mpudo, Andrew dudes himself up all fancy-like in order to impress Kate. He drives off in the now-functioning Land Rover, its comic function momentarily satisfied. In such a manner Andrew pays Kate a visit at the schoolhouse, while she tries to teach the good little African children all about the joys of apartheid. Beholding Kate’s beautiful eyes and double-X chromosomes, Andrew transforms into a whirlwind of destruction equaled only by the Tasmanian Devil, thrashing the entire classroom. It’s another good bit of physical comedy, carried entirely by Weyers.


While Andrew has his woman, Xi has his goats – in the narrator’s estimation, they are “ridiculous looking” but “look good to eat.” That’s precisely how I feel about goats! So Xi knocks a goat out with a special concoction of noble savage tranq. He prepares to roast the delicious quadruped, as horror movie music plays (I swear), when a cop arrives on the scene. In a moment I shouldn’t laugh at nearly as much as I do, the cop hurls the unconscious goat unceremoniously onto his truck’s rooftop, then knocks Xi out with a special concoction of civilized man tranq.

It’s the trial of the century! Botswana v. Bushman! The Case of the Nearly-Eaten Goat! (Okay, I’m the only one making a big deal of it.) Mpudi is called in to translate for Xi, as he’s the only one who “clicks” with him – Get it? Heh! [Sorry.] Anyway, Xi is sentenced to three months in prison.

Mpudi insists to Andrew that this incarceration will kill Xi. How did Mpudi, whose dubbed dialogue sound more Jewish than anything, get to be such a bush-genius? Glad you asked, Andrew (or whoever just queried me there). For Mpudi tells tale of his three years spent amongst Xi’s people – he knows of their deep connection to nature. It’s for this reason Xi must be rescued from prison.

Well, Mpudi’s tale must’ve been a long one, for Xi’s been in jail one whole week now, and hasn’t eaten a bite (should’ve asked for goat). Mpudi barters through the Botswanan bureaucracy. Xi’s sentence is reduced to a work detail: he is to serve out his time under Andrew’s inept care. So Xi is moved from the four solidest walls in all of Botswana, and instead faces something far less dangerous – LIONS! AAH!


It’s time for our comical murdering terrorists to reappear on the scene, just in time to kidnap Kat and her mass of schoolchildren, thus create a scenario in which Andrew can finally appear the hero. All women want is to be rescued from terrorists, just ask John McClane! Ultra-terrorist Boga (Louw Verwey) has some very curious demands: that the army clear a swath so he and his new hostages can walk off to the Montero Jungle uninterrupted, never to be seen again. I’m sure I don’t quite know what his goal is here – this isn’t even the fictional country he intends to terrorize.

As with most comedies, the need to create Third Act conflict is antithetical to the humor, which becomes far less dense. Why does this genre regularly feel the need to turn to drama at the end? No matter, it so happens that Andrew has decided upon the Montero Jungle (that’s probably not its real name) as the destination for his latest fecal scavenging investigation. Thus, after far, far longer than I am indicating here, he, Mpudi and Xi see the terrorists’ merry band nearing.

Overcoming them is pretty danged simple. It’s mostly a matter of Xi disguising himself as a child (one of this section’s few jokes, and it’s not all that successful), then shooting ¾ of the terrorists with his patented goat tranq. Oh, and it’s a stealth bow, so the arrows are toothpicks. Terrorists fall asleep to actual lullaby music.

But two terrorists are still unaccounted for. Thus commences a comic, bloodless shootout, the forces of good represented by Kate and one little child, both toting guns. It being Africa and all, I suspect the kid with the uzi was simply there that day. Then along comes Andrew, takes up yet another firearm, and bests the terrorists in comic ways I shall not ruin here. And with Andrew the hero of the hour, that’s the call for Jack the cock-blocker to appear unannounced and once again claim Kate as his own. Damn it!

This affords Andrew one more scene of Botswanan buffoonery in Kate’s presence. First, he practices a loquacious dissertation alliterating the causation of his romantic disabilities (“It’s just a psychological problem.”), but upon actually seeing Kate, Andrew don’t talk too good-like. Rather, he ravages a picnic lunch Kate has prepared – almost as though it were set up purely for a “Mr. Bean”-esque scene of bodily flailing. But apparently Kate loves Andrew for such displays; she kisses him. “Ay yay yay yay yay.”


As for Xi, now as free as a bushman, he has retrieved the long-lost Evil Thing, and made his way to the actual end of the earth – or at least a ridonkulously large cliff. Thus he hurtles the bottle down to head-clonk whatever pure tribe lives at the cliff’s base, then makes his joyful return home.

And so ends a gentle satire of civilization, and a slapstick throwback to the 20s, that misses the mark (terrorists) as much as it hits (Land Rover). It’s an unassuming movie, with the sort of washed out cinematography that works far better for mood pieces like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Here it just betrays a certain charming cheapness (unmistakably non-mainstream) that serves the film well – aided by animal interaction you wouldn’t expect from a film of this caliber. And every year or two sees a bizarre breakout hit that latches onto the public’s consciousness in a purely inexplicable way. I’m not sure what the precise, simple power of TGMBC is (head-clonking perhaps), but it sure made its name…and warranted a sequel, apparently.


Related posts:
• No. 2 The Gods Must Be Crazy II (1989)
• No. 3 The Gods Must Be Crazy III (1991)