WINDHOEK, Namibia (AP) – N!xau, the diminutive bushman catapulted from the remote sandswept reaches of the Kalahari Desert to international stardom in the film “The Gods Must Be Crazy” has died, police officials said Saturday. He was estimated to have been about 59, although he himself said he did not know his exact age. Police in the remote area of Tsumkwe in the Namibian part of the Kalahari where N!xau lived confirmed his recent death, but did not have any details of how or when he died. His name is a usual transliteration of his tribal language, which uses clicking noises that have no letter in English.
The “Gods Must Be Crazy” became a worldwide hit and a top grossing foreign film after its release in 1980. Audiences swooned over his portrayal of an earnest bushman with a sheepish smile whose discovery of a Coca-Cola bottle sets off a comedy of errors. N!xau starred in several sequels before returning to the familiarity of life as a herdsman raising cattle and vegetables in the Namibian bush.
I was surprisingly quite saddened to hear of this passing. I really liked this movie as a kid. I recognize now that it wasn’t a ‘good’ movie in terms of acting or craftsmanship. What it was was gentle and human. N!xau must have been the most unlikely movie star in history. What is more remarkable is that I doubt anyone remembers anyone else from that movie.
I do! There was the attractive blonde and the bumbling white dude. And he was always trying to protect her and winding up getting himself in trouble. There was a scene in which he was trying to get something out of a pond, and he hooked a winch up to the jeep and himself to the other end.
And the rhino came and stamped out the fire at just the right time so she would think he did it, and she got caught in the thorns while trying to change clothes, so he tried to help her while not also trying not to look at her in her underwear.
When he tore off her panties tag and just dropped it back in for lack of a better option, my mom about spit up laughing.
Completely entertaining and fun movie which hopefully will be on DVD soon. The one scene that stands out for some reason is the person backing out of the driveway to get their mail then pulling back up to the house. That short scene says so much about “modern” society and what is wrong with it.
While not what many would consider a great film, I would rather watch it than most of the commercial crap “Hollywood” puts out.
I’m glad someone started a thread about his passing. I was talking to my brother today about how I was saddened by his death. I really liked N!xau as a child. I loved The Gods Must Be Crazy and its sequel. To echo others, they weren’t great films but that didn’t matter. I loved them. In the second one I’d cry @ the scene where N!xau finds his son finally. It was a touching moment.
The film was in two basic parts - the section with the outdoorsy white dude and the new schoolteacher and the section with N!xau; the two sections were interspersed.
The section with N!xau, which begins (pretty much) with his getting hit on the head by a Coke bottle tossed out of a plane, is told in a sort-of documentary style, complete with narration. The other section is more like a regular movie.
N!xau, of course, doesn’t speak English; you hear him clicking to his fellow tribesmen. He’s an expressive individual in the movie, however. So if “being expressive” is one’s idea of good acting, then he was.
[Anyone, please feel free to correct me - I am going from memory.]
The movie was on cable about 2 weeks ago, and got me wondering what ever became of N!xau. I did some searching and didn’t find out much. I thought this was quite the coincidence when I read about his passing yesterday.
Oh man, what a downer. I didn’t catch this in the paper. The movies are just classics in their simplicity and gentle prodding at human nature. Was it the second film where the white dude is trying to escape the enraged honey badger and they end up staggering across the desert?