Gods Must Be Crazy

The Gods Must Be Crazy (The Gods Must Be Crazy) is a 1980 film comedy written and directed by Jamie Uys. Low-budgeted and entirely in Botswana, the film was successful and was followed by four sequels, three of which were filmed in Hong Kong.

Plot

Xi, his family and their tribe of Bushmen live happily in the Kalahari desert. One day, a classic Coca-Cola glass bottle falls from a small plane that was flying over the place. Initially, the Xi tribe believes that this strange artifact is another "gift" from the tribe. of the gods and give it multiple uses. Unlike before, this time there is only one bottle and they must share it. This begins to cause conflicts between the tribe and Xi makes a decision: he announces to the elders that he will make a journey to the ends of the Earth to get rid of the bottle, which they have called "the evil thing". 3. 4;.

As he progresses on his journey, Xi meets a variety of people, such as the awkward naturalist Andrew Steyn, who is studying the animals of the area to complete his doctoral thesis; Kate Thompson, the new teacher at the town school; a band of guerrillas led by Sam Boga, which is being persecuted by government troops after committing a terrorist attack; a safari tour guide named Jack Hind; and Andrew Steyn's assistant and fellow mechanic, M'pudi.

As a hungry Xi is passing through a field, he shoots a goat with a tranquilizer arrow, but is captured and imprisoned, as the goats had an owner. M'pudi, who lived with the Bushmen in the past and still speaks Xi's language, concludes that Xi will die if they keep him in prison. Thus, M'pudi and Andrew decide to employ him as an ecological expert for the rest of his sentence. Meanwhile, Sam Boga's guerrillas invade the school where Kate works and take her and her students hostage, in order to flee to the neighboring country.

Andrew, M'pudi and Xi, while observing the wildlife of the area, discover that their work area will be occupied by fleeing terrorists. They plan to immobilize the guerrillas as they pass by and thus save Kate and the students from her. However, Jack Hind appears and rescues Kate, taking credit for her feat, making Andrew once again embarrass himself to the teacher. When Xi's term ends, Andrew thanks her and pays her for her services to continue her journey. When Andrew talks to Kate about his difficulty relating to women, Kate accepts it and kisses him.

Xi finally reaches the summit of a ridge covered by clouds at its bottom. Believing that he has reached the end of the Earth, he throws the bottle into the void and returns to his tribe.

Cast

• N!xau as Xi
• Marius Weyers like Andrew Steyn
• Sandra Prinsloo like Kate Thompson
• Louw Verwey as Sam Boga
• Michael Thys as Mpudi
• Nic De Jager as Jack Hind
• Fanyana H. Sidumo as "Card 1"
• Joe Seakatsie as "Card 2"
• Brian O'Shaughnessy as Mr. Thompson
• Vera Blacker as Mrs. Thompson
• Ken Gampu as President
• Paddy O'Byrne as Narrator (voz)
• Jamie Uys as the Reverend

Reception

Despite being a low-budget film, Jamie Uys managed to give consistency to the plot with simple, spontaneous and circumstantial humor, achieving box office success. The film had four other sequels: The Gods Must Be Crazy II (1989). Crazy Safari (1991), Crazy Hong Kong (1993) and finally, The Gods Must Be Funny in China (1994). The final three films in the series are low-grossing productions and similarly shot on a limited budget. They were made in Hong Kong, with stories set in that special administrative region and presented in the Cantonese language; however, they maintain the comic essence of the two South African originals and share the same protagonist, Xi (N!xau).

The Gods Must Be Crazy was released in his native South Africa in 1980 by Ster Kinekor Pictures; it soon became a box office record in that country. For the version that was screened outside of South Africa, the dialogue from the original Afrikaans language was dubbed into English, while the voice-over had lines in the Juǀʼhoan (a dialect variety of !Kung) and Setswana languages.

By mid-November 1986, The Gods Must Be Crazy was released on videocassette in the United States by CBS/Fox through its subsidiary Playhouse Video.

Critics also favored the film with good results. On the film review website Rotten Tomatoes the film has an 85% approval rating and an overall score of 7.4/10. On Metacritic the film achieved an approval rating of 73/100, with generally good reviews.

Furthermore, Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 3/4 stars, concluding that "it may seem easy to montage disastrous situations that occur in the wilderness, but it's harder to create a fun interaction between mother nature and human nature. This movie is a little treasure".

However, other critics such as Vincent Canby of The New York Times newspaper concluded that the film was successful in its comedic role, but left aside the subject of South African apartheid and remained silent. about the suffering that this period brought to the country.

Curiosities

• Although the film collected about $100 million worldwide, according to reports, its main actor and the only one who participated in the entire series, the N!xau bosquiman, won less than $2,000 for his leading role. Prior to his death, in 1996, director and producer Jamie Uys supplemented this with an additional $20,000, as well as a monthly wage to repay his valuable collaboration. N!xau died of tuberculosis in 2003 at 59, in his country, Namibia, away from the fame of the films.

Aftermath

On April 13, 1990, The Gods Must Be Crazy II was released in the United States. It was produced by Weintraub Entertainment Group and distributed by Columbia Pictures in the United States, while in the rest of the world it was distributed by Twenty Century Fox. It was also directed by Jamie Uys. The movie had a duration of 98 minutes and was filmed in South Africa and Botswana.