This movie has made a lasting impression on my mind. I even remember the day I went to the theater with my 4 young children and a dear friend to watch it. I want to share it with you. I hope it strikes up a conversation about our relationship to the technological world we live in compared to the world of the Bushman.
Key Takeaways:
***“The Gods Must Be Crazy” is a beloved 1980 South African comedy film that explores cultural clashes, simplicity, and the impact of modern civilization in a lighthearted and thought-provoking manner.
***This heartwarming and timeless movie showcases the clash between traditional African values and modern technology, while promoting empathy, understanding, and the importance of community.
Xi and his San tribe[a] live happily in the Kalahari Desert, away from industrial civilization. One day, a glass Coca-Cola bottle, thrown out of an airplane by a pilot, falls to the soft ground unbroken. Xi's people assume the bottle to be a gift from the gods, just like plants and animals, finding countless new uses for it, such as curing animal hides, carrying water, grinding roots, rolling dough, and tracing decorative circular shapes. Only one glass bottle exists, however, and members of the tribe are constantly demanding its use while conflict arises in the erstwhile peaceful tribe. As a result, Xi decides to make a pilgrimage to the edge of the world to dispose of the divisive object.
Meanwhile biologist Andrew Steyn, who is studying the local wildlife in Botswana, is tasked by the local minister with bringing to the village Kate Thompson, a woman who quit her job as a journalist in Johannesburg to become a village school teacher in Botswana. Normally competent and efficient, Andrew becomes awkward and clumsy in Kate’s presence. His transport task is made difficult by an ancient Land Rover without brakes that requires him to jump out of the car to place a stone wedge under a wheel, freaking Kate out. The car stalls while fording a deep river, requiring them to camp out for the night 30 miles from their destination, which Kate finds opportunistic. While Andrew is undressing for bed with his pants down, a wild boar attacks Andrew, who runs through bushes into a scantily clad Kate. Not witnessing a rhinoceros stamp out their campfire, Kate thinks Andrew put out the fire himself to scare her into seeking his protection. The next morning Kate gets stuck in a wait-a-bit tree; Andrew tries to rescue her and they both end up stuck together in their undergarments. Kate increasingly suspects that Andrew’s bouts of clumsiness are calculated advances. Since their arrival at the village has been long delayed, a swaggering safari tour guide, Jack Hind, arrives to take Kate the rest of the way to the village. Andrew's assistant and mechanic, M'pudi, who has been married to seven women, counsels Andrew to explain himself to Kate.
In the fictitious neighboring state of Biryani, a band of fugitive guerrillas led by Sam Boga, have killed three cabinet members and injured two others in an attempt on the president's life, sending the military in hot pursuit.
On his trek to dispose of the cursed Coke bottle, Xi finds a herd of goats and shoots one with a tranquilizer arrow, planning to eat it. The goatherd has him arrested, and he is sentenced to 3 months in jail. M'pudi, who once lived with the San and can speak their language, considers the verdict harsh. He and Andrew arrange to hire Xi as a tracker for the remainder of his sentence in lieu of prison time.
Meanwhile, the guerrillas invade Kate's school, taking her and the students hostages as they make their escape to a neighbouring country. Andrew, M'pudi and Xi, immersed in their fieldwork, find that they are along the terrorists' and children's path and concoct a plan. Xi, who is small in stature, slips among the children with a brief note for Kate. Xi uses makeshift tranquilizer darts to immobilize six of the eight guerrillas, allowing Kate and the children to confiscate the guerillas' firearms. Andrew and M'pudi apprehend the remaining two guerrillas. Hind arrives and takes Kate and the children away, taking credit for the rescue that Andrew, M'pudi and Xi had planned and executed.
Later, with Xi's term over, Andrew pays his wages and sends him on his way. Having no use for money, Xi discards it. At M'pudi’s counseling, Andrew visits Kate to explain his “interesting psychological phenomenon” of awkwardness around women, but in the process repeatedly knocks over the table and utensils that Kate is setting. Kate finds his efforts endearing and kisses Andrew.
Xi eventually arrives at the top of a cliff with a solid layer of low-lying clouds obscuring the landscape below. Convinced that he has reached the edge of the world, he throws the bottle off the cliff and returns to his family. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gods_Must_Be_Crazy
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