Rungano Nyoni is one of the most talented filmmakers to emerge on the scene at the moment, director of I Am Not a Witch, which won her the BAFTA for Outstanding debut in 2018, and has not lost any of her momentum in her career. This time; we switch focus to On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, a family saga that takes place in the wake of a wicked uncle of a middle-class Zambian family, who has buried secrets that upon his death, come to life. The film feels like the perfect antidote to all those “he had a heart of gold” news reports that follow dead people; when you realise not everyone can be perfect and not everyone deserves to be remembered fondly – as much as tradition suggests otherwise.
Plenty of films have started with the premise – a young person who returns home from the big city to be reckoned with tradition of the family and the clash of modern identity. It’s a formula – you’ve seen it before, no matter the location, England, America, even Australia. Yet On Becoming a Guinea Fowl subverts this – furious, angry – it shows that you can never truly go home again, lest you be forced to be shown how much things never really have changed. It’s a quiet divide – the pain that runs through Shula’s central character is evident beneath the façade that the incredibly gifted Susan Chardy brings to the table – stoic and mature, restrained in her emotions - capable of not crying when her family breaks down around her, putting on a show of grief of the death of the husband only to lash out and persecute the widow for failing to protect him. I’ll challenge anyone not to get angry at the route that this family takes – it feels so beholden to tradition that they never once think to examine the secrets of the dead.
There are louder films. There are shoutier films. But it’s a testament to how powerful this one is that the final shot feels like it’s going to linger on your mind for years, if not decades to come. Powerful. Quiet. Angry. A Guinea Fowl warns others of danger and that could not be more apt – you see that Shula has tried; over and over again – to warn the family of Uncle Fred, but they haven’t listened. Multiple people of different generations have the same story to tell. The more people who come forward, the angrier you get – at the family for doing nothing, and what’s worse, the family taking Uncle Fred’s side. It veers into dark bleak comedy at times – the opening scene where Shula tries to call her dad to help her with Fred’s corpse, found on the side of the road outside of a brothel, and we learn how much Zambian culture rears its head over tradition.
The elder characters are useless. They offer no solution to the problem. Just patronising “would we hate our own?” comments – her anger is ignored by even her own father, who would rather invite her to join him partying the night away then spend it mourning Uncle Fred, or fighting his memory. They are protected, as was Uncle Fred, by tradition. On Becoming a Guinea Fowl is quiet enough to make you mad. If this were a Hollywood film; there’d be a happy ending. But this is not a Hollywood film – and it’s all the better for it. You’re sat there and forced to watch as tradition lets Shula – and the younger generation down. Her embracement of American self-help podcasts and the teams calls that open the film as part of the work from home culture of the modern world are a gateway to the bleakness that follows.
Don’t expect easy answers, but On Becoming a Guinea Fowl is the quietly rewarding, powerful film that shines a spotlight on tradition and takes risks where most dare not. It subverts the formula; defies tradition both in Zambian culture, and in filmmaking. Extraordinary and worthy of being remembered as one of the very best of the year – its blend of tragedy and black comedy, there are touches of Uncut Gems-level stress at times in its frantic, buzzy screenplay – that ultimately add to its strength. Forget the Oscar frontrunners – this is one of the best films of the year, and should be recognised as such.
