
It is considered courteous, we have been told, not to speak ill of the deceased; however, it is equally correct, in many instances, not to speak ill of the persons who are still living. With regard to the victims who may harbor grievances against persons who are older and more powerful than them, it becomes difficult to know when to open their mouths at all. However, a trembling mass of rage shatters the quiet in Rungano Nyoni’s extraordinary new film “On Becoming a Guinea Fowl” as a group of young women, scarred by sexual abuse, resent the complacent silence of their families once their common abuser dies, thank god. This has never been seen before; new autonomous filmmaking is simultaneously brave and balanced and seeks to capture the spirit of a Zambian society in turmoil somewhere between rigid conservatism and modern change.
As Nyoni served as a juror in the Cannes Film Festival last year’s Competition, then she might have been poor in judging only this segment, thus we could safely place it in the competition section saying ‘On becoming a Guinea fowl’ reaches Cannes considering its parentage aided by A24, BBC Film and Fremantle and high heeled with Irish element Pictures (“Poor Things,” “Room”) which produced it. Such is the power of her second film Nyoni “I am not a Witch” shot in 2017. The film explored themes of African femininity in a culture threatened by second-wave conservatism through a blend of surreal African folklore and art house sensibility. This film was much more formally exciting, employing an extravagant collage of imagery and sound design to showcase the various influences of a Zimbabwean filmmaker who spent most of their early life in Wales.
Loosie’s next effort tonally mellows the formalism, immersing herself into the character and the community to unravel the intricacy of cultural antagonisms yet she can still, with the help of ace Colombian DP David Gallego (“Embrace of the Serpent,” “War Pony”), frame things up. “Guinea Fowl” commences its practice of wider image production with a shot or image of quintessential preposterousness, twenty-two-year-old Shula (Susan Chardy) soothingly driving back home after ‘teddy bear parties’ dressed in an inflated black puffa bodysuit with only the jeweled tiara covering her face. It is difficult to understand whether it is hip‐hop emanating from the costume, the origin of the animal, or the two in combination: Having recently returned to Zambia with her family after some time spent overseas, Shula (the Christian name of the oppressed juvenile heroine of the movie “I Am Not a Witch,” maybe even her etheric successor) is devoid of any ethnographic attributes.
This makes her hesitate and even compels her to stop the vehicle but not get out of the vehicle. She rings her father (Henry B.J. Phiri) and indifferently, in a calm and detached voice informs him that Uncle Fred is lying on the tarmac, dead. It was her voice and his expression that was controlled in pain. As she is awake with her family announcing the death to each other in the groggy morning, her eyes are fixated on her uncle\’s corpse, not even when her hyper cousin Nsansa (a loud Elizabeth Chisela) arrives at the parked car and politely punches it calling from outside the car to inform them that their uncle died in the shower a couple of meters away from a whore house. “Now I know a map for pleasure,” Nsansa says while laughing. As the two of them continue to mute roars, it is hard to understand why they are so intent on keeping watch near the deceased. Maybe they just want to confirm his death.
The early pages bring out that Shula, Nsansa, and a third cousin, Bupe (Esther Singini) were all sexually abused by Uncle Fred and that number is a drop in the ocean of the cases among women in the family barring it ever being the focus of conversation. The torture of watching Chardy perform, who is still but never not impassive, is one of those countless nagging irritants that Shula is weary of going out of her way to avoid. But this is not a tale of the chickens coming home to roost where hidden dark family tormentors are concerned, largely because everyone knew it in the first place. It’s just that nobody has a uniform opinion on the best way to handle it.
Shula is not enthusiastic about pretending to mourn as funeral traditions take center stage. A multitude of distant relatives arrive at her lower-class family home to prepare meals, reside, stitch violent red funeral dresses, and cry out like a huge crowd a cacophony of irritating human voices that clashes with the drone-like simplicity of Olivier Dandre’s incredible sound design while every other person gives Fred a retrospective character development. All their wounded mothers tell them to put all the pain together with the men who were the cause of it, as all their unfortunate ancestors did. Even greater collective sympathy is absent for Fred’s young widow cruelly sketched, in a handful of brief, crushed shots, by Norah Mwansa who is emphatically not permitted the status of victim, rather a leech of their family tree. As for what the men are thinking, Nyoni gives little to no attention: This is a drama where male voices are only heard when they ask for money and food, helpless parasites for some reason elevated to the highest social rank.
The voice of the female protagonist is portrayed more dynamically and emotionally. The peaking sound is the best example as the ‘finest cries’ of unspeaking witnesses are only battled by young girls who imitate the guinea fowl call, frustratingly growing to the level of a burglar alarm. For instance, when they individually speak, they can foretell what’s to come: a favorite sequence occurs when Bupe’s selfie-snapped stories of suffering are divulged and reconfigured by Shula only to come full circle back to the original victim as their storylines reinforce one another. Nyoni’s contemptuous dark film gives hope that memory will endure the fight with denial even though no generation emerges victorious in the battle of generations in “On Becoming a Guinea Fowl.”
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