Joyce Glasser reviews On Becoming a Guinea Fowl (December 6, 2024) Cert. TBC, 95 mins. In cinemas
On Becoming a Guinea Fowl is an impressive second feature from writer-director Rungano Nyoni. Her first feature, I Am Not a Witch won BAFTA’s Outstanding Feature Debut award with artfully composed, surreal images in a shaky narrative about superstition and exploitation in modern Zambia. This award to an African-Welsh woman (Nyoni’s family moved to the UK when she was nine) was a godsend to BAFTA in 2017, criticised for being too white and too male. Rungano, however, whose name means story-teller in Shona, is not a token, but a genuine talent and her second feature marks the ascension of a genuine new voice and vision.
Driving home from a costume party on an empty motorway, rhythmic music accompanies the lone driver, a striking young woman in a silver helmet with large, dark goggles over her eyes. The driver, Shula (Susan Chardy) suddenly stops her car at the sight of a body lying in the middle of the road.
Remaining in the car, she calls her father (Henry B.J. Phiri) and, with no emotion in her clear, articulate voice, informs him she’s just seen Uncle Fred’s (Roy Chisha) body on the Kulo Road. Her father suggests sprinkling some water over him, but Shula assures her father he’s dead. “Just liked Fred,” is the response from a father straight out of Flat Stanley. He promises to take a taxi to the location if Shula pays, but never does.
While sitting in the car, waiting for the police, Shula hears a commotion, followed by a knock on the car door, more annoyed than relieved to see her emotional cousin Nsansa (Elizabeth Chisela). Nsansa announces with delight that “the big man has died a happy man,” referring to a brothel nearby.
Eventually Shula lets her cousin in the car, and they remain there guarding the body until the police come to remove it. What ensues for the rest of the film is one of the longest, strangest funerals committed to the screen.
The ritualistic event is held at Shula’s mother’s sprawling farm house, where people are clearing out all the furniture to make way for a long, giant sleepover. As the guests arrive, Shula escapes to a hotel.
At this point we still don’t know who she is. Tall, thin, attractive, composed and well dressed, she resembles a model. She drives a nice car, speaks immaculate English and is independent enough to stay at a hotel. But before she can unpack, a group of female mourners arrive to admonish her for bathing and looking so calm after finding the body. They persuade her to collect her mother (Doris Naulapwa) at the airport and return home.
In the midst of hysterical wailing, Shula is bored and unmoved but obliging. As if on autopilot, she performs a series of tasks, including doing the washing, shopping for food and cooking to feed the large gathering. Two uncles treat her like a waitress, telling her what they want her to serve them. As more and more relatives hear the news and arrive, the house fills up with weighty men and women in African attire.
A man inscribes a message that Brother Fred will be sorely missed. But by whom? Certainly not by his poor, ignorant young wife from another clan summoned by a family court to explain her husband’s death. She is accused of neglecting him but tells her judges that ‘he drank a lot. He got ill and he had a problem with his stomach.’ Her own family weep over their daughter’s shame and willingly pay financial reparations to Fred’s people.
And certainly not by Shula, Nsansa and a cousin Bupe (Esther Singini), presumably hospitalised for malaria, who share a dark secret. Only it isn’t a secret. It’s just that in their patriarchal society, almost everyone is complicit.
The oppressive atmosphere is enhanced by Olivier Dandré’s striking soundtrack which helps to create an immersive experience for the disorientated audience. The production design is also something, although the dream imagery of flooding, first in Bupe’s depressing dormitory, and then throughout the farmhouse, is puzzling, as is the venue where Shula meets up with her father. The film has a few longueurs, but is full of chilling scenes, including one in which Shula seeks the truth from her father.
In another, terrifying scene, Nyoni builds an atmosphere of claustrophobia so unbearable that we feel it, like the emotional equivalent of surround sound. Portly aunties close in on Shula and Nsansa, who have sought seclusion, chanting how much they love and will protect them.
So what about the title, you ask? Throughout the film school children – the future of Zambia – learn about guinea fowls. They are talkative birds, but their chattiness is useful. When a predator emerges they chat up a storm, proving effective to the creatures of the Savanah.
Shula’s father tells her, ‘there are battles you can’t win.’ Maybe so, but you can sound the alarm like a guinea fowl.
