ON BECOMING A GUINEA FOWL
(director/writer: Rungano Nyoni; cinematographer: David Gallego; editor: Nathan Nugent; music: Lucrecia Dalt; cast: Susan Chardy (Shula), Elizabeth Chisela (Nsansa), Roy Chisa (Uncle Fred), Benson Mumba (Joseph), Henry B.J. Phiri (Dad), Esther Singini (Bupe), Norah Mwansa (widow/Chichi), Doris Naulapwa (Shula’s Mom), Gillian Sakala (Auntie Ruth), Carol Natasha Mwale (Aunty Catherine), Loveness Nakwiza (Aunty Linda); Runtime: 95; MPAA Rating: NR; producers: Tim Cole, Ed Guiney, Andrew Lowe; A24; 2024-UK/Zambia/Ireland-in English & Bemba)
“An unsettling film about sisterhood in modern-day Zambia.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
The auteur Rungano Nyonis (“I am not a Witch”), born in Zambia but raised in Wales, helms an unsettling film about sisterhood in modern-day Zambia. She won the Best Director award at Cannes.
It follows the young woman Shula (Susan Chardy) who resettles in Zambia after living for years abroad and tries to readjust to life in her birthplace. Shula is driving home from a night out at a formal costume party dressed in a fluffy sci-fi outfit, when she stumbles across the body of her uncle Fred (Roy Chisha) on an empty street, near a brothel. Shula calls her gleeful at the news cousin Nsansa (Elizabeth Chisela) to keep her company until the funeral home sends someone to retrieve the corpse.
At the funeral proceedings, Shula and her cousins uncover the secrets their middle-class Zambian family has tried to bury for years, as each family member attempts to deal with her uncle’s death in their own way.
A group of young women who have been sexually abused by the deceased–that include Bupe (Esther Singini), Shula and Nsana– decry the family elders for not coming to their defense when sexually abused by the uncle.
The generational impasse created by Fred’s death is told in a probing, comical and lyrical way.
The female voices speak for the filmmaker at the funeral, mimicking the guinea fowl’s warning cry against predators. In this pic, the males have nothing important to say.
It played at the Cannes Film Festival.
REVIEWED ON 9/14/2024 GRADE: B
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