上帝也疯狂 英文观后感.doc

Review of the Moive The Gods must be crazyFirst I will give a brief introduction of this film.The film is a collision of three separate storiesthe journey of a Juhoansibushmanto the end of the earth to get rid of a Coca-Colabottle, the romance between a bumbling scientist and a schoolteacher, and a band of guerrillas on the run.Xi and his band of San/Bushmen relatives are living well off the land in the Kalahari Desert. They are happy because the gods have provided plenty of everything, and no one in the tribe has unfulfilled wants. One day, a glassCokebottle is thrown out of an aeroplane and falls to earth unbroken. Initially, this strange artifact seems to be another boon from the gods-Xis people find many uses for it. But unlike anything that they have had before, there is only one bottle to go around. This exposes the tribe to a hitherto unknown phenomenon,property, and they soon find themselves experiencing things they never had before: jealousy, envy, anger, hatred, even violence.Since it has caused the band unhappiness on two occasions, Xi decides that the bottle is an evil thing and must be thrown off of the edge of the world. He sets out alone on his quest and encounters Western civilization for the first time. The film presents an interesting interpretation of civilization as viewed through Xis perceptions.There are also plot lines about shy biologist Andrew Steyn (Marius Weyers) who is studying the local animals (which, because of his nervousness around women, he once described as manure-collecting); the newly hired village school teacher, a former newspaper reporter named Kate Thompson (Sandra Prinsloo); and someguerrillasled by Sam Boga (Louw Verwey), who are being pursued by government troops after an unsuccessful attempt to massacre the Cabinet of the fictional African country of Burani. Also taking a share of the limelight is SteynsLand Rover, dubbed the Antichrist (also son of a mlakka) by his assistant and mechanic, Mpudi (Michael Thys), for its unreliability and constant need of repair. Also part of the chaos is a fresh safari tour guide named Jack Hind (Nic de Jager), who has designs on Thompson and would often steal Steyns thunder.Xi happens upon a farm and, being hungry as well as oblivious to the concept of ownership, shoots a goat with a tranquilizer arrow. For this he is arrested and jailed for stealing livestock. Mpudi, who lived with the bushmen for a long time, realizes that Xi will die in the alien environment of a prison cell. He and Steyn manage to hire Xi as a tracker for the 11 weeks of his prison sentence, with the help of Mpudi, who speaks Xis language. Meanwhile, the guerrillas invade the school where Kate teaches and use her and her pupils as human shields for their escape by foot to the neighboring country. Steyn and Xi manage to immobilize the guerrillas as they are passing by and save Kate and the children. Steyn allows Xi to leave to continue his quest to the edge of the world.Xi eventually finds himself at the top of a cliff with a solid layer of low-lying clouds obscuring the landscape below. This convinces Xi that he has reached the edge of the world, and he throws the bottle off the cliff. This scene was filmed at a place calledGods Windowin the thenEastern Transvaal, South Africa (nowMpumalanga). This is at the edge of theescarpmentbetween theHighveldandLowveldof South Africa. Xi then returns to his band and receives a warm welcome.This movie is not a big budget action film, this movie is not an emotional soap opera, or a tearjerker, this is a simple little film about the simple things in life. This South African produced film has proven to be one of the best I have seen in quite a long time. N!xau, a native bushman plays a bushman in this movie. A coke bottle has destroyed his villages life as it has been proven to be an excellent tool, but everyone wants it. So the young Bushman is told by the village elders to throw the evil thing off the ends of the earth.On his long and perilous journey he runs into all kinds of different people, some terrorists, a man studying animals, an uptight urban teacher, and some trouble along the way, obviously. The movie is just so funny, the film is told from the point of view of the bushman, and is poignant as well. The movie manages to be very different, and extremely unconventional, at least by American standards.I have to admit I am glad I got to see this movie. A lot of great foreign films do not make it over to America, and that is sad, but this movie is excellent, it is funny, sweet, and all around one of the best movies I have seen. The writing is congruent and sharp, the performances do not at all seemed forced and the ensemble here manage to come off appropriately hilarious without taking away from the plot.There are some political overtones here as well, as the movie takes a few shots at apartheid, when it was still around. Also in my mind the movie is extremely satirical of the instability that the region faces. The funniest part of the movie were the terrorists. They were so incredibly inept and silly I couldnt help laugh at them. If they werent tripping over closing doors they were tripping over themselves.Marius Weyers as the biologist who is clumsy but well meaning also steals the show, and his assistant, played by Louw Verway is excellent, but the real star of the show is N!Xau, who makes such an excellent lead and does wonderful here.