Cinema
The Gods Must Be Crazy
Jamie Uys · 1980
Synopsis
A Coca-Cola bottle, thrown from a plane, lands intact in the Kalahari, in the midst of a San community that has never seen a manufactured object. Taken at first for a gift from the gods, it soon sows discord, and Xi, the group's hunter, sets off to give it back to the gods. Along the way his path crosses those of Andrew Steyn, a shy scientist, Kate Thompson, a new schoolteacher come from the city, and a band of guerrillas led by Sam Boga, who takes the school hostage.
Context
The film was released in South Africa on 10 September 1980; it had been shot at Tsumkwe, in South West Africa, and in Botswana, in English, in Afrikaans and in a San language. Uys reported having paid N!xau 300 dollars for his first ten days, an account that Josef Gugler has questioned, the director's versions varying. Critics, among them Vincent Canby and Richard Borshay Lee, reproached it for treating the San with condescension and for passing over apartheid in silence; Uys rejected the accusation. An official sequel appeared in 1989.
Who it is for
A 108-minute slapstick comedy, in English and Afrikaans, dubbed for its American release; the debates over its portrayal of the San are part of its reception.
Prizes and reception
The greatest commercial success of South African cinema of its time; number one at the Japanese box office in 1982, a record for a foreign film in the United States in 1984.