Re: the title On Becoming a Guinea Fowl (now streaming on HBO Max). The animal, a pheasant-like sub-Saharan African bird, has a distinct call that alerts anything within earshot of an approaching predator. It’s the central metaphor in Zambian-Welsh director Rungano Nyoni’s second feature, about a Zambian woman caught between her family’s traditions and her urge to not just upend them, but destroy them. It’s a fascinating, occasionally surreal drama about where pain exists within the generational divide – and it’s not a film that’s easily forgotten.
The Gist: Nighttime, a quiet road somewhere in Zambia. Shula (Susan Chardy) drives home from a costume party, still wearing her puffy, glammed-out homage to an old Missy Elliott video. Her head turns and her gaze lingers for a moment as she slowly passes something in the road. It’s a man, flat on his back. She pulls over and dials up her father, who can barely be drawn away from the party that’s obviously happening on the other end of the call to learn that his brother-in-law is dead. That’s Uncle Fred. Shula’s mother’s younger brother. Shula gets out of the car and then we see Young Shula standing and staring at the body. Another vehicle arrives and a drunken woman with long braids and a bottle in her hand wobbles over. It’s Shula’s cousin Nsansa (Elizabeth Chisela). Neither seems particularly upset to see their uncle lying there, eyes-open dead. After they wait until morning for police to arrive, they’ll laugh at the realization that Uncle Fred died within stumbling distance of a brothel.
Soon, Shula’s tidy middle-class home will be ground zero for an extensive mourning period for her uncle. The women of her extended family arrive and remove furniture to prepare for dozens of guests. They chastise Shula for bathing, which you’re not supposed to do during this time of bereavement. She goes to the airport to pick up her mother, who, after greeting her daughter, slumps to the floor and loudly weeps. During the following several days, the women will gather inside to wail and moan, and Shula will be chided for not joining the caterwaul. The women also prepare food, as the men sit outside, at the periphery of this story, waiting for the women to serve them. Uncle Fred’s widow arrives with a clutch of female relatives, and they’re sometimes afforded the courtesy of being cruelly judged and gossiped about behind their backs. Otherwise, they’re openly derided.
But what about the elephant in the room? It will not be acknowledged. Shula and Nsansa share private moments where their mutual unspoken horror quietly seeps out. They go to a dormitory to fetch their cousin Bupe (Esther Singini) and find her nearly unresponsive. They take her to the hospital. It seems Bupe attempted suicide, and left behind a would-be posthumous video in which she talks about Uncle Fred. “Don’t think about it or talk about it,” Bupe’s mother says to Shula. Bupe will, however, turn up at Shula’s house mere hours later and tell Shula and Nsansa, “He’s dead now, so it’s OK.” Shula visits Uncle Fred’s home and finds an elderly woman caring for several children, prompting Shula to do the math on the ages of his widow and their oldest child. There was no guinea fowl to caw a warning for any of these women. But is there room in this culture of silence for a reckoning?
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Those of us who haven’t seen Nyoni’s debut I Am Not a Witch apparently have to make it a priority now.
Performance Worth Watching: This is Chardy’s first acting role, not that you can tell. Her performance is subtle without being passive, skillfully walking the very fine line Nyoni has drawn on the border of tradition and progress.
Memorable Dialogue: A random aunty doesn’t think Shula is grieving properly: “Her eyes are so dry. She doesn’t look like someone who has seen a corpse.”
Sex and Skin: None.
Our Take: The culture of silence depicted in Guinea Fowl extends even further – its highly performative mourning rituals apparently include not speaking ill of the dead. Even if the dead was a pedophile and rapist. Even if it means blaming the victims, a key element of the film’s plausibly horrific dramatic climax. The truth hangs in the air, begging to be acknowledged, and only Shula seems willing to speak out. In one telling moment, the elder women secretly gather in the pantry with Shula and Nsansa for an airing of grief that’s far more genuine than the absurd wailing they previously indulged. And in the actions of the elder women is a clear implication: There’s nothing they can do about any of it, because tradition dictates otherwise.
Nyoni isn’t in the business of instant gratification or closure. The film is an expression of frustration and anger – and detachment, as illustrated in a few hallucinogenic sequences in which Shula seems outside herself, trapped in a dreamstate that may actually make more sense than the absurd realities of her culture. The filmmaker differentiates herself from simpler, yet more superficially gratifying feminist-revenge pictures by situating her protagonist at a generational tipping point. Hers is a quieter, more nuanced righteousness, ensconced in traditions that exist for no logical reason other than to allow men to do as they please while women exist to appease them.
Exactly why the women continue to submit is the source of Nyoni/Shula’s frustration. Tradition can be used to uphold power structures, and therefore has a strange hold on a people reluctant to embrace progress or higher thought. And so On Becoming a Guinea Fowl becomes more than just a youngs-vs.-olds conflict, Nyoni wielding the title creature as a poignant symbol illustrating that humanity can be less “civilized” than wildlife. Some may use “biology” as an excuse for male-dominated culture, but nature has also devised defense mechanisms for survival, hence the call of the guinea fowl in the presence of brutal predators. Why some pockets of humanity have no parallel mechanism is beyond comprehension.
Our Call: On Becoming a Guinea Fowl is a powerful drama with a distinctively strong and original voice and vision. STREAM IT.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.