1980: "The Gods Must Be Crazy"

                               The Gods Must Be Crazy is a South-African comedy about Xi, the leader of a primitive tribe of Bushmen, who encounters a Coke bottle that falls from the sky. Thinking it evil, Xi travels across the Kalahari Desert to the "end of the world" to rid his tribe of the bottle. Along the way, he encounters violent guerrillas, a schoolteacher, a dung expert, and many other wacky characters along the way.

                               I guess you could call this movie a mash-up of It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World and Koyannisqatsi (peaceful primitive farming life brought up against ridiculous, mind-numbing modern life). Was it a mash-up that anyone wanted? I don't know. Critics seemed to like it. For the life of me, I don't know why.
                            The Gods Must Be Crazy is terrible, not to mention teeth-clenchingly frustrating to sit through. Frustrating in the sense that it could have potentially worked in another way. The first fifteen minutes of the movie are fairly decent (establishing the tribe, our main character, etc.). It's kind of charming and laid-back (with a wonderfully wry documentarian narration to translate). And the actor playing Xi, N!xau (a real-life bush farmer), has a warm sunny presence that prevents it from being unwatchable. The movie, if it had any sense, should have specifically focused Xi as he traveled to the "end of the world" and encountered all these crazy characters. But instead, it devolves into a uneven, unfocused morass of atrocious gags and epileptic editing. It cuts back and forth, with reckless abandon, between multiple storylines (Xi's quest, the guerrillas, the dung expert and the school teacher, and the police) with no rhyme or reason when it comes to transitioning. The movie could have worked as a simple fish-out-of-water story but they clutter everything up with nonsense. I just don't understand how they screwed up such a simple story.
                               The humor is the most pandering sort of slapstick you could imagine. The gags are poorly executed and they involve a lot of sped-up footage to compensate for its ineptness. There is a running gag where the dung expert's jeep keeps idling backward down a hill (because his car has no brakes, apparently). The first time it happens, it's a five minute sequence and it is anxiety-inducing. Logic has to step in at some point. I would probably turn the jeep off if it were to keep doing that. Watching this awkward clod use a rock to keep it from going backward is more frustrating than funny.

                          This was not a fun sit for me, though from what I hear, this movie brought attention to South Africa's film industry. Maybe it's responsible for other forms of media from South Africa being brought to international attention. Maybe we can thank The Gods Must Be Crazy for J.M. Coetzee or Charlize Theron. I guess it's a plus.