Posted: Wed., Dec. 31, 1980, 11:00pm PT

The Gods Must Be Crazy

(Botswana)

By Variety Staff

CAT. Director Jamie Uys; Producer Jamie Uys; Screenplay Jamie Uys; Camera Jamie Uys, Buster Reynolds, Robert Lewis; Editor Jamie Uys; Music John Boshoff

Marius Weyers Sandra Prinsloo N!xau Louw Verwey Michael Thys Jamie Uys

The Gods Must Be Crazy is a comic fable by one-man-band South African filmmaker Jamie Uys, who shot the picture in Botswana in 1979.

Uys' basic storyline has Xi (N!xau), a bushman who lives deep in the Kalahari desert, setting off on a trek to destroy a Coca Cola bottle which fell from a passing airplane and by virtue of its strange usefulness as a utensil (thought to be thrown by the gods from heaven) has caused great dissension within his tribe.

Xi plans to throw the unwanted artifact of modern civilization off the edge of the world and in his trek encounters modern people.

Film's main virtues are its striking, widescreen visuals of unusual locations, and the sheer educational value of its narration.

(Color) Widescreen. Available on VHS, DVD. Extract of a review from 1981. Running time: 108 MIN.