On Becoming a Guinea Fowl
After Shula (newcomer Susan Chardy) finds her Uncle Fred's body lying in the road on her way home from a party, the days spent with her extended family leading up to his burial reveal awful secrets that find Shula remembering 'The Farm Club," a TV show she watched as a child, and the behavior of a hen featured on one episode as she weighs "On Becoming a Guinea Fowl."
Laura's Review: A-
Back in 2017, Zambian born, Welsh raised writer/director Rungano Nyoni made a splash with her debut film "I Am Not a Witch," submitted by the UK for the 2019 International Oscar. She returns with another film about female oppression in her country of birth, again featuring a protagonist named Shula, introduced coming from a costume party clad much like that little girl accused of witchery.
This Shula, a young woman in her twenties, is a far more modern face of Zambia, even as she is dragged down by her own cultural traditions. We meet her in her car, a new SUV where she will spend a lot of time being directed on errands. After noting her uncle in the road and pulling over, she will first attempt to call her mother, the man's sister, but receiving no answer she calls her dad (Henry B.J. Phiri), who immediately hijacks the conversation into a plea for rent money before saying he'll be right there after she sends him cab fare. But it's not her father who appears, instead her cousin, Nsansa (Elizabeth Chisela), so drunk Shula doesn't want to deal with her, relenting only when Nsansa gets police on the phone who recognize her condition. They're told that the one police vehicle available is being used for the national interest and to stay with the body until morning. By the time their pickup truck arrives, Nsansa, now somewhat sober, comes cackling to Shula to report that Uncle Fred apparently died a short distance from a brothel.
Shula is surprised to learn that her home will be the site of the funeral. She hightails it out of there, checking into a hotel where we will see her on what appears to be a business-related Zoom call, hers the only black face on a split screen of about fifteen. She'll be disturbed by a knock on the door - found by four of her aunties, she's asked if she's bathed (tradition requires mourners not to), told to dress more appropriately for the funeral and to pick her mother up at the airport. Mom (Doris Naulapwa) arrives with a cartload of luggage, collapsing on the terminal floor in a dramatic display of grief.
If at first you find Nsansa annoying (and she will continue to be, demanding Shula take her to buy charcoal when Shula is heading to pick up another cousin, Bupe (Esther Singini), at school), it will be Nsansa who picks at the festering scab that was their Uncle Fred. If the men of the family appear to do nothing but ask for money and order Shula around like a waitress, the women are not much better, professing devotion and protection of their daughters while their actions evince something else. Their treatment of Fred's widow, Chichi (Norah Mwansa), is incomprehensible, denying her food and making her sleep outside when, we will learn, she is also a victim of their brother, something Shula will learn when she drives to her home to pick up a phone charger and discovers six young children there, their grandmother begging to be left with their house. When Shula visits her father, partying in a flooded room, a common occurrence here, and asks him to hold Fred accountable, he just asks if the corpse should be questioned, Zambians, including victims, believing death waives such things.
Cinematographer David Gallego ("Embrace of the Serpent") gives the film vibrancy, an accomplishment considering much of it is shot in darkness. Production design, art direction and costume design ensure bright pops of color, only Shula's childhood memories appearing faded. Speaking in both English and Bemba, Chardy, who won the Breakthrough performance award at the 2024 British Film Independents (the film also won Best British film and Best director as well as Un Certain Regard at Cannes), looks like she is carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders, yet still exhibits patience with the elders who have allowed so much pain. Chisela, too, gives a striking performance, changing our perspective of her character over the course of the movie. With only two films, Nyoni has established herself as one of Africa's premiere export filmmakers, her ability to balance comedy and tragedy impressive.
And Nyoni ends her film with a bang, a customary gathering of families for an 'explanation' of death and divvying up of material wealth where the film's title becomes trenchantly clear. "On Becoming a Guinea Fowl" stirs up strong emotions.
Robin's Review: A-
A24 releases "On Becoming a Guinea Fowl" in select theaters on 3/7/25, opening wider on 3/14/25.
