The Gods Must Be Crazy
| The Gods Must Be Crazy | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Jamie Uys |
| Produced by | Jamie Uys |
| Written by | Jamie Uys, Mont'e Ramodumo |
| Starring |
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| Narrated by | Paddy O'Byrne |
| Music by | John Boshoff |
| Cinematography | Buster Reynolds Robert Lewis |
| Edited by | Stanford C. Allen Jamie Uys |
| Distributed by |
Ster Kinekor (SA) 20th Century Fox (US) |
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Release date
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Running time
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109 minutes |
| Country |
South Africa Botswana |
| Language | English Afrikaans Juǀʼhoan Ungwatsi |
| Budget | $5 million |
| Box office | over $60,000,000 (US) |
The Gods Must Be Crazy is a 1980 South African comedy film written and directed by Jamie Uys. Financed only from local sources, it is the most commercially successful release in the history of South Africa's film industry. Originally released in 1980, the film is the first in The Gods Must Be Crazy series. It is followed by one official sequel released by Columbia Pictures.
Set in Botswana, it follows the story of Xi, a San of the Kalahari Desert (played by Namibian San farmer Nǃxau ǂToma) whose tribe has no knowledge of the world beyond, Andrew Steyn (Marius Weyers), a biologist who analyzes manure samples for his PhD dissertation, and Kate Thompson (Sandra Prinsloo), a newly hired village school teacher.
Xi and his San tribe of Ju'/Hoansi bushmen are "living well off the land" in the Kalahari Desert. They are happy because of their belief that the gods have provided plenty of everything, and no one among them has any wants. One day, a glass Coca-Cola bottle is thrown out of an airplane and falls to Earth unbroken. Initially, Xi's people suppose this strange artifact is another "present" from the gods and find many uses for it. (They employ it as a crafts tool, blow the top to make music, etc.) But unlike anything that they have had before, there is only one glass bottle to go around. With everyone wanting it at once, they soon find themselves experiencing envy, anger, and even violence.
Since the bottle has caused the tribe unhappiness, Xi consults with elders and concludes that it's an "evil thing" which the gods were "absent-minded" to send them. Noting that some attempts to dispose of the bottle have failed, Xi agrees to make a pilgrimage to the edge of the world and toss the seemingly cursed thing off.
Along the way, he encounters a diverse assortment of people. There's biologist Andrew Steyn, who is studying the local animals; Kate Thompson, the newly hired village school teacher; a band of guerrillas led by Sam Boga, who are being pursued by government troops after an unsuccessful attack; a safari tour guide named Jack Hind; and Steyn's assistant and mechanic, M'pudi (who is maintaining his cantankerous Land Rover).
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Wikipedia