Probably one of the most famous movies to come out of Africa, I had only heard of this movie, never seen it. What I expected from this was a silent era-esque performance from the main actor in a full on slapstick comedy with barely any story. Man was I wrong.The story behind this movie is as relevant now as it was back then and it still packs a punch with what it set out to do, make us realise the immoral things we have done to this world. This was my favourite part of the movie.My least favourite part was the comedy, it just didn't seem to live up to my expectations or today's standards. Maybe another watch will see me enjoy the humour a bit more but I think that the 80's was where it belonged.

Years ago I caught this film on cable television, and watched about twenty minutes of it before switching off. I thought it was the biggest pile of rubbish that I'd ever seen, what with speeded up Keystone Cops slapstick in just about every scene, and a guy in a Rhino suit pretending to be the real thing. Add to that the documentary style narrative and you have, for me at the time, one of the worst films ever. But I've watched it just now and must say I was well wrong. I must have been in a bad mood or something, because the Gods Must Be Crazy is wonderful.A pilot flying over Botswana throws and empty coke bottle out of his window, and it ends up landing in a village of bushmen. Not knowing what it is, their leader, played by a real Bushman called N!Xau, finds many uses for it before it's usefullness inspires jealousy and envy. Now seeing it as an Evil Thing, he tries throwing it back to the Gods, whereupon of course gravity takes hold and it bounces off of his son's head. N!Xau then decides to head off to the edge of the world and throw it away.Meanwhile a Communist leader attempts a coup but fails, and the authorities chase him and his men into Botswana.Also meanwhile a South African gentleman and his mechanic are asked to pick up a white woman who wants to teach people in a nearby village. The things is, this guy (Mr Stane, I think his name was) gets very nervous in the company of women, and his jeep, dubbed the anti-Christ by the mechanic, doesn't help matters.All these elements come together, of course. N!Xau is arrested for killing a goat (he has no concept of ownership) and is only helped out by Mr Stane and the mechanic (who can speak N!Xau's language). While out in the wilderness working away, they spot, using a telescope, that the teacher and her pupils have been kidnapped by the Communist leader, who hopes he can make it out of the country while using them as hostages. Here, N!Xau knowledge of stalking comes into play.This movie is very odd, but also very entertaining and sometimes touching. You've got to envy N!Xau's simple life, and the bemused look on his face at the idiotic things people in the developed world do is a wonder to behold. So is his language, a series of clicks mixed with spoken words. You get used to the speeded up sequences (Keystone cops rocket launcher attack?) and it becomes clear that there is some genuine humour behind all the slapstick. The scene at the end when N!Xau throws the bottle away in silent contemplation is a cracker (yes - he does find the end of the world, sort of). He must be the least neurotic film character I've ever seen.Highly daft and slightly cheesy, with great cinematography (which was probably missing all those years before DVD), you come away from this film feeling a lot better, which doesn't happen often.

This is one hell of a movie!!It's a place where humor meets innocence. I remember watching this move 10 years back and it left a mark in me.The movie has two sequels to it, but the one that has done it all is this part! It captures the journey of Xi(N!xau), to dispose the 'evil thing' (a coke bottle) that accidentally falls 'from the sky', in a remote village in Africa. What one expects with this kind of a plot is how Xi tackles the real world outside him.For this movie , the amusing element is how well he adapts to it.Xi's journey intertwines with the journey of many other interesting characters and creates a laughter roll. Do not dismiss the movie as soulless, because it is full of it. And N!xau is a star!

This absurdly popular South African comedy offers little more than a gentle slapstick poke at civilization, following a chance encounter by an innocent Kalahari bushman with an empty Coca Cola bottle tossed from an airplane window. Believing it to be property of the Gods, he decides to walk "to the edge of the world" and throw the mystic talisman off, encountering along the way enough subplots to fill three separate films. Director Jamie Uys isn't above getting laughs by having his characters slip on banana peels, but elsewhere he shows a fertile comic imagination, even if his ideas are occasionally spoiled by crippling miscalculations: silly, speeded up photography; poor dubbing; a TV sit-com music score; and irrelevant voice-over narration, constantly belaboring the obvious. But it's a difficult film to dislike: the jokes are too good-natured, and the large cast of characters all too well equipped with human frailties.