The Gods Must Be Crazy II

Xi's two children climb onto a poacher's truck thinking it is a water tanker, and are carried away. Their father sets off after them. At the same time a lawyer and a zoologist crash-landed in the desert, two soldiers and the poachers all tangle together. The subject is not adventure but the intersection of five separate lines moving through the same desert unaware of each other. The comedy comes out of the cutting: something that happens on one line produces a consequence on another without explanation. The form is the same as the first film: undercranked motion, voice-over narration and physical gags in the silent tradition. Jamie Uys again both writes and directs. Seen today, the production carries a problem. N!xau, who plays Xi, was genuinely Ju'hoansi and living in Namibia, and the very low fee he was paid for the first film later became a subject of controversy; his terms were improved on the second. The series was also criticised by anthropologists for portraying the San as a people untouched by the modern world, when the real situation was considerably different. Lena Farugia plays the lawyer and Hans Strydom the zoologist. Who it is for: anyone who liked the first film and enjoys comedy built on coincidence. Who it is not for: viewers who cannot set aside the series' problem of representation; the film never addresses it.