On Becoming a Guinea Fowl

Tropic Sprockets by Ian Brockway

[mr_rating_result]

From director Rungano Nyoni (“I Am Not a Witch”) here is “On Becoming a Guinea Fowl,” a dark comedy centering on the toxicity of the patriarchy. It is rightly acidic but never crass, pointed, and impactful, with just the right amount of gallows humor.

Shula is then rudely confronted by her cousin Nsansa (Elizabeth Chisela) who is inebriated.

On a quiet night in Zambia, Shula (Susan Chardy) happens to see the body of her dead Uncle Fred on a deserted road. She is told by a relative to lock her door and not let anyone inside.

Once home, Shula is whisked away to another residence due to a superstitious custom.

Bickering and fighting ensues, becoming increasingly violent and caustic. Several of the family members seethe with rage.

Men are selfish and demeaning to their spouses.

Shula maintains her cool dispassion throughout every hysterical episode. She is treated as a servant within the family without respect. Time and again, Shula seeks validation and recognition, but she is repeatedly ridiculed. The family begins to encircle her with jarring evil and malevolence. Such instances carry all the dread of a story by Franz Kafka or Shirley Jackson.

With echoes of Jamie Uys’s “The Gods Must Be Crazy” (1980), but also with a healthy dose of Samuel Beckett, “On Becoming a Guinea Fowl” is full of absurdist angst with a finale punctuated by something of the supernatural and a sense of the uncanny.

Write Ian at ianfree11@yahoo.com