A guinea fowl, we are told, warns the flock of predators by screeching its unmistakable call. The otherwise timid bird turns into a real-life siren. A call that others can’t — and shouldn’t — ignore.
This is Rungano Nyoni’s second feature, and it’s a remarkable film. Its subject is dark and heavy, yet her touch is delicate. There is enough trauma to go around, no need to treat it with a sledgehammer. Her lead is the hypnotic Susan Chardy, who carries the picture with grace. There isn’t a single false note in either of their work.
And what work it is! How else to describe a feature that mixes pitch black humor with familiar drama, generational trauma, superstition, and hints of magical realism? Every minute you think the story will escape from the filmmaker, Nyoni reigns it back in. It is an astounding feat of elegant anger, perfectly in control even as it rages throughout the ages.
We join the story on a dark road at night. A body lies cold by the side of it. Chardy, driving to a party, recognizes the cadaver. It’s her uncle, whom everyone agrees was a character. He was also a predator. As the family gathers to bury the dead, the effects of his actions fester in the background.
On Becoming a Guinea Fowl is a difficult film to watch because it is so honest with itself. It asks how such evil can happen in a matriarchal society. What happens as we create rituals to silence those in pain? There is contradiction in grief, just as there is in life. All we can do is warn others, and ensure that those who come after us can have it better than we did.
Nyoni’s precise storytelling defies expectation. We want to see a conflict. Something that caps these feelings for good. But none arrives, because this isn’t that kind of fable. Instead, it’s a story told a thousand times over. Whatever resolutions come to pass will happen behind closed doors. In those places where no one else can enter. For most, it’s the realization that their assailant is dead. It’s a poor substitute for justice, but it will have to do.
In that respect, On Becoming a Guinea Fowl is a powerful, devastating film. It lingers in the soul long after it’s finished. Its warning siren haunting us to do better.