This 1980 South-African classic by
Jamie Uys is a 109 minutes roller coaster ride into laugh land. You’d
never stop laughing. The movie wittily wove three different hilarious
stories together in one. Set in a fictitious African country, Burani,
this movie told the story of how a bush man, Xixo (N!xau), got exposed
to civilization for the first time, the romance tales of a hapless
scientist, Andrew Steyn (Marius Weyers), and a beautiful newly hired
school teacher, Kate Thompson (Sandra Prinsloo), as well as the menace
caused by some terrorist group in the country.
Short of the story
Xixo’s little clan lived happily in an
isolated clearing several miles away from civilization. They had never
known a different live apart from their wonderful hitch free lifestyle.
However, one day a Coca-Cola bottle dropped from an aeroplane and it
totally changed their life. At first they found different uses for the
bottle and it appeared a blessing for the clan. However, with it came
new evil as a desire to keep the bottle for self, this introduced the
clan members into selfish acts and greed which eventually broke into
violence. To rid the clan of this new evil, Xixo decided to travel to
the end of the world to return the bottle back to the gods.
Steyn is a resident scientist in a
small village which had a new school teacher from the city. On arrival
the new teacher, Miss Thompson is to rendezvous with Steyn who is to
take her to her place of deployment. However, Steyn’s jumpy nature
around females ensures that they spent longer time together due to some
humorous mishaps. Eventually she got to her school where she was later
held hostage by a terrorist group.
Xixo’s live will eventually cross with
both Steyn and Thompson’s when Thompson and some of her students were
held hostage by a terrorist group that had attacked the government of
the country. Xixo, who had been employed by an associate of Steyn’s,
alongside Steyn eventually helped capture the terrorists, save the
children and Thompson before going on about his quest to the end of the
world. In the end everybody happily got what they wanted; Xixo threw
the bottle away at some cliff he believed was the world’s end and
returned to his family, Steyn found out Thompson didn’t think he is an
idiot after all and even got a kiss, and the terrorist group… well,
they never got what they wanted but what they deserved.
Some unforgettable scenes
Even though the movie is characterised by many hilarious scenes, some remained stamped in the memory. The scene where Steyn jumped out of his brakeless truck to open a wooden gate while Thompson got panicky in an unmanned car was awesome. The shocking look in her eyes when Steyn said “Don’t worry it’ll comeback”, after he noticed the truck is going uphill and will eventually roll back was awesome. The part where Thompson also watched Steyn put out a night fire and later tried to explain it was to put away the Rhino will burst your tummy up; and so will the scene where a set of Bushmen came to corroborate his story while shaking their heads. Xixo’s clan’s adventure with the bottle too provided lot’s of humour also, especially in the scene where Xixo shot an arrow at a herd of goats in the presence of its herdsman thinking they are wild games.
Xixo’s attempt at driving the truck in reverse mode which eventually saw him disposed of the car by a low branch and Steyn’s effort to control the unmanned car which further made him look more like an idiot to Thompson is also unforgettable.
Scenes as listed above abound in the movie which evidently puts the movie in the realm of comedy classics however the manner with which the movie’s story is told so simply from an odd perspective is the master punch.
