The Gods Must Be Crazy (1980, S. Africa/Botswana)

This sleeper hit from South African director Jamie Uys (who also served as actor, writer, editor, and producer) was released as a film from the country of Botswana, due to an int'l embargo or boycott on S. African films; the comedic allegory told about the tribal Bushmen (aka San or Saan) of the Kalahari who believed that a Coke bottle descended from heaven (via an airplane) was a gift from the gods.

Its main tagline was: "An Epic Comedy...Of Absurd Proportions." Some of the comic segments were deliberately filmed to appear sped-up using camera trick enhancements, similar to silent slapstick-comedy shorts (i.e., The Keystone Kops), also with added cartoonish music and cheap sound-effects.

In the plot, Xi (portrayed by a destitute Namibian bush farmer) - a tribe member of the Kalahari Bushmen - found a strange object on the ground. It was regarded as a transcendent gift, but served as a symbol or artifact representing modern civilization (a "plastic society") that the native Africans were not ready for. At first, Xi and his tribe viewed the unusual thing as a "good and useful" tool provided for their well-being. Although the bottle was at first coveted by the people, it soon became apparent that the "evil thing" brought only unhappiness and grief, and it needed to be eliminated.

During the tribesman's lengthy pilgrimage and quest to return the foreign object back to the 'end of the earth,' he encountered a socially-awkward white wildlife biologist who was shy and clumsy around females and an ex-journalist who was newly-hired to be a local village schoolteacher in rural Botswana - they provided the main romantic comedy and "fish-out-of-water" elements of the film. Xi also crossed paths with a fugitive group of freedom-fighting guerrilla-revolutionaries (portrayed as moronic, bumbling and ineffective) after their failed coup and flight, who then took the schoolteacher hostage with her class and created a hostage crisis.

Although the whimsical, low-budget proto-documentary was designed to be an allegorical comedy about cultural differences, the film became controversial for its alleged racial stereotypes (racism) and naive and crude patronization, plus insensitivity to apartheid issues in S. Africa. Its South African white director Jamie Uys was accused of various misrepresentations, of propagating false and idealized notions about South Africa, and for having his efforts funded by the apartheid government.

On a budget of about $5 million, the comedic drama (over its first 4 years) became a box-office hit and grossed $30 million (domestic) and $90 million (worldwide). At the time, it was lauded as the US's highest-grossing foreign film of all time, and one of South Africa's most popular films. Although the film was released internationally in 1980, it didn't have a theatrical showing in the US until mid-1982, and didn't go into wide theatrical release (dubbed into English) in the US until the summer of 1984. It began to pick up steam when it experienced long theatrical runs at various US theatres, was popularized on the 'midnight movie' circuit, and was distributed in the US (on home video in 1986, and DVD in 2004). A sequel, The Gods Must Be Crazy II followed in 1989.

• the film opened with the Narrator (Paddy O'Byrne) describing (in a deadpan voice-over) the harsh and unrelenting desert where the Bushmen tribes-people lived, faced with severe water shortages for most of the year:
  • "It looks like a paradise, but it is in fact the most treacherous desert in the world - the Kalahari. After the short rainy season, there are many waterholes, and even rivers. But after a few weeks, the water sinks away into the deep Kalahari sand, the waterholes dry up, and the rivers stop flowing"
• the Kalahari inhabitants themselves were glowingly and mythically described as 'noble savages' - "the little people of the Kalahari. Pretty, dainty, small and graceful, the Bushmen," who "must be the most contented people in the world. They have no crime, no punishment, no violence, no laws, no police, judges, rulers or bosses"
• in harmony with nature, they were portrayed as completely unaware of the 'civilized' modern world and ignorant about airplanes and their contrails in the sky: ("Sometimes they hear a thundering sound when there are no clouds. They assume the gods have eaten too much and their tummies are rumbling. Sometimes they can even see the evidence of the gods' flatulence"); they communicated with "clicking" sounds, and were "very gentle people" who had "no sense of ownership at all"; a contrasting comparison was made by the Narrator between their lives in the desert and the vast cities in S. Africa where "civilized man refused to adapt himself to his environment" and had ultimately made life much more complicated and crowded
• into the primitive people's sheltered world-view (or idyllic desert Eden) came an unusual bird, according to the voice-over Narrator; a carelessly-discarded glass Coke bottle was ejected from the airplane by a bush pilot, flying over the desert area
  • "Lately, strange new things sometimes appeared in the sky. Noisy birds that flew without flapping their wings. One day, something fell from the sky. Xi had never seen anything like this in his life. It looked like water, but it was harder than anything else in the world. He wondered why the gods had sent this thing down to the earth. It was the strangest and most beautiful thing they had ever seen, and they wondered why the gods had sent it to them.

Bush Pilot Discarding Empty Coke Bottle From Airplane

The Glass Coke Bottle Didn't Shatter on the Ground

Xi (N!xau) - A Tribal Bushman Discovering the Bottle

• the odd object was discovered by Xi (N!xau), a Junt-wasi tribesman from the African Kalahari Desert - who assumed it was a gift from the gods; he brought it back to his tribe members, who were fascinated by it, and laughed when one elderly man's finger became stuck in it
• at first, the smoothly-shaped bottle was useful as a labor-saving device for curing snakeskin, for transporting water, grinding, rolling dough or tracing circular shapes, and it could also produce music (by blowing across its top), but because it was one-of-a-kind, it could not be shared amongst the tribe:
  • "It was the most useful thing the gods had ever given them. A real labor-saving device. But the gods had been careless. They had sent only one. And now, for the first time in their lives, here was a thing which could not be shared because there was only one of it. Suddenly, everybody needed it most of the time. A thing they had never needed before became a necessity, and unfamiliar emotions began to stir, a feeling of wanting to own, of not wanting to share...."
• for the Bushman who had "no sense of ownership," the aftermath of the singular gift caused anger, jealousy, covetousness and greed among the tribe; some of the women fought over the bottle, and one of them was angrily pounded in the head with the object:
  • "...And other new things came: anger, jealousy, hate and violence."
• Xi reacted to the newfound emotions - expressing the derivation of the film's title; he attempted to throw the bottle back into the sky, but gravity brought it back to the ground; the second time he tossed it into the air, he came down and hit his daughter Dani in the head; he surmised that the bottle had been mistakenly given to them: ("the gods must be crazy"):
  • "Xi was angry with the gods. He shouted, 'Take back your thing! We don't want it! Look at the trouble it brought.' But the gods did not take it back. He shouted, 'You must be crazy to send us this thing! Take it back!'"
• Xi took the bottle away from the camp and buried it; that night, "there was no laughter and no chatter around the family fire. A strange feeling of shame had come over the family, and they were very quiet"; the bottle reappeared in the camp (after being dug up by a hyena), and further unhappiness and conflict arose over the bottle that came to be regarded as "the evil thing"; doubts arose in the mind of the wise elder Gaboo - "Perhaps the gods were absent-minded when they dropped the evil thing on the earth. They've always sent us only good things, like the rain and the trees and roots and berries to eat; because, we are their children and they love us. But, now they sent us this evil thing"
• Xi answered by vowing the next morning to walk as far as necessary (maybe for 20-40 days) to get rid of the harmful and divisive object - and heave it off the edge of the Earth: "I will take it to the end of the Earth and throw it off"
• in one of two sub-plots, 2,000 miles to the north in the state (fictitious) of Birani, a gang of guerrilla-revolutionaries in brown T-shirts machine-gunned down three Cabinet members and injured five others (including the President (Ken Gampu)) in an attempt to assassinate the state's President during an official meeting in the capital; four of the gang members were killed by security guards, and some were wounded, but four gang members escaped and became fugitives as they fled in jeeps into Botswana; the mastermind of the plot was Sam Boga (Louw Verwey) who was in a hideout with other gang members during the attack
• the gang's wounded hostages were threateningly questioned and under duress divulged the location of the gang's banana jungle hide-out; the inept and buffonish guerrillas fought back (aiming at a bunch of bananas, misloading a bazooka, and slipping on a banana peel, etc.) as their hideout was assaulted with gunfire from a government-military helicopter, but ultimately they downed the helicopter with a fiery blast; afterwards, the guerrillas were assaulted by an armored tank with a cannon, and they fled (in sped-up vehicles)
• during his trek, Xi had to convince a curious baboon that had run up a tree with the Coke bottle, that the object should be returned because it was "evil"
• in the film's second sub-plot, in the bustling city of Johannesburg 600 miles to the south, secretary-journalist Kate Thompson (Sandra Prinsloo, with English dubbed voice by Janet Meshad) learned that there was a teacher shortage in Botswana, and she decided (off-screen) to change from her 'civilized' occupation
• in addition, intelligent biological researcher Andrew Steyn (Marius Weyers) was researching elephants by collecting blood and fecal samples in the wild; his research assistant and mechanic was M'pudi (Michael Thys), who was struggling to repair their Land Rover (M'pudi nicknamed it the "Anti-Christ"); at their camp, they were visited by the local Reverend (James Uys) who claimed he had a broken down car and needed to have Andrew drive their disabled Land Rover to pick up the new female schoolteacher at Mabula; although the Rover had new rings, it was difficult to start and was lacking a hand brake; Andrew reluctantly agreed, but admitted he was awkward around women: "When I'm in the presence of a lady, my brain switches off or something. I turn into a complete idiot"; after Andrew was given a jump-start, he noisily motored off, and shortly later drove by a sleeping Xi and woke him up; the Narrator described how Xi thought the Rover was "a very noisy animal" that left two strange snake-like tracks

Journalist Kate Thompson (Sandra Prinsloo, with English dubbed voice by Janet Meshad)	Andrew Steyn (Marius Weyers) - Wildlife Biologist-Researcher
Reverend (James Uys, the film's director)	Andrew's Assisant and Mechanic M'pudi (Michael Thys, with English dubbed voice by Pip Freedman)

• meanwhile, Kate flew into Botswana and then traveled by bus to the small rural village of Mabula where she waited by the side of a dirt road for an expected ride from the Reverend
• Andrew faced numerous misadventures in exhausting slapstick-comical situations with the Rover that lacked a hand-brake on sloped roads (he had to keep running back and forth to open and close gates, and block the front tire of the Rover with large boulders to stop it from moving); at the same time, the fugitive rebels in two jeeps stopped at a roadside shop, stole a drum of petrol and half of the shopkeeper's stock, and took off; shortly later, they were pursued by two government reconnaisance armored tanks, as they headed toward the border of Botswana to cross over and seek refuge
• eventually, Andrew arrived very late - and covered in mud - to pick up Kate; their return trip was a repeat of his earlier journey with the frantic opening and closing of gates and blocking of the tires, and she felt terrorized and freaked out by his antics
• about 30 miles from their destination, the malfunctioning Rover died mid-stream deep in a river, and he accidentally dumped her into the water as he tried to valiantly carry her; both of them retreated to the nearby river's edge and were separately removing their wet outer garments when a warthog attacked Andrew; he retreated (with his pants down, revealed red briefs) and mistakenly bumped into Kate who had removed her dress and was in her bra and panties; she was suspicious that it was an opportunistic ploy of Andrew's to see her scantily-dressed and to run into her and threatened: ("You keep away from me"); she thought that his whole plan was his calculated trick to camp out with her overnight in the wild

Andrew Awkwardly Late in Picking Up and Meeting Kate

Getting Stuck in the Dead Rover Mid-Stream

Kate Dumped Into the River

• later that night around a campfire, as they ate a meal and he told her that his job was to collect manure, they were interrupted and approached by a wild rhinoceros who stamped out their fire; as Andrew tried to shield and protect her, she didn't see the wild animal and thought he had personally sought to find an excuse to grab her; she ran off from the camp and climbed high up into a tree, told him to "keep away," and then accused him of trying to scare her so that he could take advantage of her: ("It's a most interesting phenomenon. You get these sudden urges, and you come up with warthogs and rhinoceroses"); shortly later, two African natives (Tswanas) appeared, and Kate fearfully became grateful for Andrew's presence and quickly retreated to his side for protection
• the next day to rescue the Land Rover from the middle of the river, Andrew hooked the Rover's electric front winch up to the elevated limb of a large tree branch to pull it out; at the same time, while Kate was changing out of her clothes and was in her bra and panties, she became inextricably caught by the sharp, hook-shaped thorns that cut into her bare skin; she called for Andrew's bumbling and embarrassed help to carefully extricate her, distracting him from the Rover that by now had been pulled completely up and out of the water and was 10 feet off the ground

Xi on His Trek - His Odd Reaction to Kate

• by this time, Xi (on his continuing trek) came upon Kate changing her clothes, as the Narrator described his reaction to her:
  • "Xi saw the ugliest person he'd ever come across. She was as pale as something that had crawled out of a rotting log. Her hair was quite gruesome, long and stringy and white, as if she was very old. She was very big. You'd have to dig the whole day to find enough food to feed her....Although it was a hot day, she was covering her body with skins that looked as if they were made from cobwebs"
• because she was doing "strange and magical things," Xi first imagined that she might be one of the gods; he attempted to give her "the evil thing" to end his pilgrimage; however, she refused to take it: "She was very rude, and she walked away"; Xi also noticed Andrew smoking a pipe, and conjectured that "there was another god. He had a fire inside him and the smoke came out through his mouth and nostrils"; Xi proposed giving the bottle to Andrew but he also declined it
• along came M'pudi to the rescue on a motorized cart, to retrieve the long-delayed Andrew and Kate, and to help get the Rover ("The Anti-Christ") down out of the tree; Xi thought the cart was a colorful "animal," and also described the driver as a "weird-looking god" - who "wore blue skin on his head and red on his body, and hair grew on his face"; the Bushman was disappointed when told by M'pudi (who knew the Bushman language of Kung) that he had to keep the bottle and throw it away himself; the Narrator described Xi's disappointed reaction: ("He thought it was unfair of the gods to make him throw the thing off the earth. In fact, he began to doubt whether they really were gods")
• afterwards, as the Rover was being towed back to Andrew's place across a flat desert area, Jack Hind (Nic de Jager) - a handsome, suave safari lodge tour guide (who was referred to as a "great white hunter") pulled up and offered to rescue the relieved Kate and take her on to the village; after Kate changed vehicles and left, Andrew commiserated with M'pudi about how Kate was unimpressed with him: ("She thinks I'm a lunatic and I don't blame her...She wouldn't believe me about the warthog and the bloody rhinoceros"); at the same time, as the debonair Jack served Kate a drink, he confirmed for her that Andrew seemed to have acted strangely with her
• once Kate arrived at the rural Mission, all of the villagers assembled to sing her a welcome song; meanwhile, the "notorious Communist guerrilla leader" Sam Boga and his remaining 7 members of his group (with only one jeep) had broken through the border gate into Botswana
• meanwhile, Andrew dressed up in a tie and jacket to visit Kate at the mission-school and to return her shoes; as he left, he received advice on women from M'pudi (since he had 7 wives), although he wasn't at home living with any of them: ("I know how to marry them. Nobody knows how to live with them"); upon his noisy arrival, he disrupted Kate's class in session, clumsily knocked down many classroom items as he unintentionally wildly entertained the young children, and left completely humiliated
• Xi's long walk brought him into contact with a herd of goats - and since he was hungry, he proceeded to treat them as animals to be hunted; after he downed one with a tranquilizer arrow, the young goat-herder hurriedly rode off on a bicycle and reported him to an African constable; during the confrontation with an official (who confiscated the goat), Xi resisted arrest as he walked off to shoot a second animal; he was hit with a bullet shot into his left upper thigh and then detained; [Note: The Coke bottle had earlier been left on the ground near the herd.]; when called to the court to translate during Xi's trial, M'pudi learned that Xi was to be sentenced to three months in jail for theft and slaughter of one goat - a harsh verdict given Xi's unfamiliarity with walls surrounding him; in place of jail time in Mahadi (since Xi had eaten for a week), Andrew and M'pudi decided to arrange for Xi to be hired as their "ecological expert" for the remaining 11 weeks of his sentence
• once back in M'pudi's and Andrew's camp, Xi tried to explain to them about "the evil thing" and "the end of the world," but they didn't understand him; meanwhile, Jack was attempting to date Kate; one day, Jack asked to borrow Xi (with M'pudi) to track a wounded cougar shot by one of the safari guests; fortunately, out in the wild, Xi was able to save M'pudi by scaring off a threatening wild lioness

Kate and Students Seized by Rebels In the Classroom and Taken Hostage

The Students and Villagers - Hostages in a Circle Around Boga and Kate As They Began Their March

Andrew Viewing An Army Truck Setting Out Supplies For the Hostages and Rebels

• Sam Boga and his small group of seven other fighters barged into Kate's classroom, and kidnapped her and three of her students as hostages; when the Botswana authorities arrived, they were forced to drop their weapons and to let them (and all the students AND villagers, plus Kate) proceed by marching eastward on foot; Boga ordered the police to not follow by threatening to kill the students: ("We'll mow these kids down"); he also demanded that the group was required to be provided with a 10-mile wide cleared-out path or corridor, and food and water supplies placed for them by the Army every 20 miles
• back at the camp, M'pudi taught Xi how to drive the Land Rover; soon after, the team left to perform a 'game count' in the back-country of Nioko; slightly later, Jack's latest safari group was located and informed that they were directly in the path of the terrorists who had been provided with a pathway for safe passage by the government; Jack knew that Andrew's team five miles away was also in the rebels' path and attempted to warn them
• on the side of a cliff as Andrew took an 'animal count' after viewing oryx and other animals at a watering hole through his giant telescope, Xi observed that there were also "people things down there" - he had actually spotted an Army truck unloading food and cooking utensils to supply the arriving hostages; and then Xi also noticed the group of children walking toward the supplies; Andrew realized: "There are men down there with guns. It's no picnic. I think those kids are hostages" - and then he saw that Kate was one of the rebels' hostages; Boga ordered for everyone to take a one hour rest period
• Andrew's plan was to "immobilize them" - the small-statured Xi (dressed in a young female student's clothing) infiltrated the rebel group, delivered a note to Kate (about the overall plan), and immobilized six of the eight guerrilla rebels with tranquilizer needle-darts shot from a very small bow; the two rebels, identified as Card 1 and Card 2 (Fanyana Sidumo and Joe Seakatsi) who continually and disobediently played cards, the film's running joke, had snuck off to the rocks, and escaped being tranquilized; Kate and some of the older kids were able to confiscate and disarm the rebels who had been immobilized; the two who played cards were alerted by a random gun discharge (from the weapon confiscated from Boga), although Kate was able to hold the two off with one of the machine guns
• after a brief gun battle against the two last rebels, Andrew and M'pudi joined in to apprehend them; Xi was ordered to go back to retrieve the jeep, but accidentally put it in reverse; Andrew captured the first rebel by dislodging a snake from a tree onto him, and the second one by causing burning sap to fall on him from a tree; Jack arrived to help, but the plan devised by Andrew, M'pudi and Xi had already succeeded; nonetheless, he honked a horn to signal "all clear" ("We've got everything under control. You can come out...the Marines have landed"), and gave himself full credit as a "big hero" for the rescue and release of the hostages, as he led Kate and the children away; Andrew also saved Xi's runaway jeep from crashing into the children
• at the end of the eleven weeks, and it was time for Xi to say goodbye; Andrew tried to pay Xi with paper money, although M'pudi reminded him that the Bushmen had no use for money: ("Bushmen don't know about money"); Xi took the bills, but then they were left behind blowing away in the wind, as he marched onward to complete his mission
• all along, Andrew had been "mooning" over the "schoolmarm" and finally was able to get up the courage (with M'pudi's encouragement) to speak to her - with a rehearsed speech about his "interesting psychological phenomenon" of being completely impaired around women; he muttered to himself: "If she gets to know me better, then she'll see I'm not such a stumblebum. All I need is a little practice"
• once he spoke to Kate, Andrew again fumbled his chances - he crawled under a table to retrieve a plastic cup, and then covered himself with flour before crashing the table to the ground; she laughed and forgave him, and finally realized Andrew's truly endearing nature and good intentions - she kissed him

Kate Showing Her Appreciation to Andrew Despite His Clumsiness

Film's Ending: Xi Tossing the Bottle Off a Cliff Into a Low-Layer of Clouds

Xi Welcomed Home - With Scrolling Cast Credits

• in the film's ending, Xi picked up the bottle where he had left it, and journeyed to return the peculiar glass object back to the gods - and suddenly, he found the edge of the Earth (a cliff above a cloud-covered valley) and threw back the offensive object:
  • "Xi was beginning to think he'd never find the end of the earth. And one day, suddenly, there it was."
• as the closing cast credits rolled, Xi was joyfully welcomed back by his family