By Ryan Michael Painter
Driving home from a proper night out, Shula slows to look at a body in the road. Reluctantly, she stops, exits her vehicle, takes a closer look, and calls her father. It’s Uncle Fred.
The situation is absurd, and it only gets more so with the sudden arrival of Shula’s incredibly drunk cousin who, also recognizing that the body is Uncle Fred, decides to call the police. The police, after initially believing they are being pranked, ask the pair to stay with the body (but not too close) overnight until they can send officers to collect Uncle Fred.
99 minutes, Rated PG-13
Written and Directed by Rungano Nyoni
Starring Susan Chardy, Elizabeth Chisela and Henry B.J. Phiri
Synopsis:
On an empty road in the middle of the night, Shula stumbles across the body of her uncle. As funeral proceedings begin around them, she and her cousins bring to light the buried secrets of their middle-class Zambian family, in filmmaker Rungano Nyoni’s surreal and vibrant reckoning with the lies we tell ourselves.
There’s something in Susan Chardy’s performance as Shula that undercuts the potential comedy. It initially feels like annoyance but the deeper we dive into On Becoming a Guinea the clearer Shula’s apprehension becomes.
The film unspools like a mystery with Shula forced to play a detective who unwittingly investigates the life and impact of Uncle Fred. Her fact finding plays out against the backdrop of the cultural procedure of Uncle Fred’s days-long funeral.
Writer/director Rungano Nyoni infuses the film with experimental flourishes that include Shula’s reoccurring memories of a children’s program that she watched when she was young, and dreamlike sequences.
The more I think about the film, the more I am assured of its brilliance. It’s an infuriating, horrific, and devastating farce that proves to be far more gut wrenching as it becomes increasingly realistic and complex. The social commentary is vicious and extends far beyond Zambian traditions.
On Becoming a Guinea is hauntingly abrasive. Just like it should be.
And remember, if the BEST thing you can say about a movie is that it’s “visually stunning,” then they’ve done something wrong.
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