The Tree Grabs You

Mid-way through The Gods Must be Crazy, Ms. Thompson gets too close to a wataba tree and becomes entangled in it. While the scene is farcical, as is most of the humor in the movie, it is related to a broader message about how easy it is to become entangled with other people if you get too close to them.

Andrew the ecologist/biologist becomes entangled with Ms. Thompson and with Xi the bushman. Xi with a society he is unfamiliar with; the professional mercenary Sam Boga, with the bushman when Xi is sent to prick the mercenary group with poisoned darts.

Given 32 years since the making of the film, it is tempting to interpret the plot and characters through a contemporary lens. The individuals can be seen as caricatures of Africans and the humor plays a fine line between portraying individuals as nobel and being worthy of respect versus being comical and silly background; such as mercenaries slipping on bananas. To the contrary, one of the strongest characters is Mpudi, the mechanic and friend of Andrew Steyn as well as Xi, who is primarily trying to do right in the world, by getting rid of what his tribe considers to be an evil object. Andrew is one of the most farcical when he flails around in front of Ms. Thompson.

Expanding outward from the story of military buffoonery, each group is portrayed as being caught up with outside forces. The bushmen from a bottle introduced from the sky; Sam Boga is a representation of forces from Europe, interfering with politics in the country. Meanwhile, the indigenous people are trying to simply get on with their lives.

Even the mercenaries are presented this way, when the two soldiers that blow up the helicopter almost immediately go back to playing cards, one still holding a bazooka, before the armored cars show up seconds later.

The style of the movie is like a nature documentary of the early 1980's, starting with a day in the life of people in an urban setting, a narrator explaining various elements of the world. As the story moves forward, the narration drops away. It is as if the movie were being presented to the audience in the familiar way of the Mutual of Omaha nature series. Given the 30 years of Discovery, History and National Geographic channels, the presentation in the movie comes across as a bit off putting.

Strangely, the movie does not address the Republic of South Africa, which had a full decade to go before the end of apartheid. It is unclear if Ms. Thompson is from the RSA or from another nearby country, but at least one of the early urban scenes shows a sign for Johannesburg, implying that she is in the RSA. I do wonder what was behind this aspect of the film, given the issues surrounding apartheid, perhaps the film makers avoided it to not entangle themselves in a side show of politics.