The absurdist drama “On Becoming a Guinea Fowl” begins with one of the most indelible images to grace the silver screen in recent memory: a young woman, Shula (Susan Chardy, in a star-making debut performance), donning Missy Elliott’s iconic bejeweled mask and oversized inflatable black suit from her music video for “The Rain,” driving alone down dark, desert road suddenly finds a dead body. She is shaken to her core, but in a way that implies it’s caused by more than her reaction to the finding of just any dead body. Soon, we learn it’s her Uncle Fred. His death, and the complex traditional funeral proceedings that come along with it, force Shula and her cousins (Elizabeth Chisela and Esther Singini) to reckon with the hidden, lingering trauma that bonds them together.
Born in Lusaka, Zambia, writer-director Rungano Nyoni’s family migrated to Wales when she was nine years. After studying business at the University of Birmingham, Nyoni pursued her dream of becoming an actress at the University of the Arts London, where she also discovered a love of storytelling behind the camera. After graduating with a master’s in acting from the Drama Centre London, Nyoni shot and filmed her debut feature film, “Yande,” on Super 8mm film. Ten years and several short films later, she made her directorial debut with the highly acclaimed “I Am Not a Witch,” which screened at the Directors’ Fortnight section of the 2017 Cannes Film and later earned her the BAFTA for Outstanding Debut Film.
Her most recent film, “On Becoming a Guinea Fowl,” competed last year in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival. Writing out of its premiere, Robert Daniels was “flabbergasted” it wasn’t selected to compete for the Palme d’Or, calling it “a magically transcendent, cunningly funny, and arresting piece of cultural commentary that pits the inequalities of tradition against the warmth community can, still, on occasions, provide.”
RogerEbert.com spoke to writer-director Rungano Nyoni and star Susan Chardy over Zoom about the magnificence of the guinea fowl, the film’s striking opening allusion to Missy Elliott, externalizing a character’s internal journey on screen, and evoking feelings of rage and empowerment in their audience.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
I was unfamiliar with the guinea fowl as an animal or as a metaphor when I first watched it, and I was really taken with the way you used the animal throughout your film, with the video, and where you take it by the end. I would love to know at what point in the writing process with this story did you think the guinea fowl was going to be that central metaphor?
Rungano Nyoni: I know how it started. I divided the film up into chapters when I wrote it because I thought I was being really smart. And I’m like, “It’s like Lars Von Trier!” So I had chapters, and they were all titled with Bemba parables. And one of them, which was towards the end, involved the guinea fowl. I liked the saying, so then I realized, okay, I’m just being pretentious. I don’t need these chapters. So I removed them. But that one saying stuck with me. So, I started researching. For some reason, I started looking at guinea fowls, and probably avoiding writing. Then I found out so much stuff about guinea fowls.
That saying is true, and in our culture, it has loads of meanings. It can mean healing. Guinea fowls are also synonymous with being resilient and so many other cool things. I had always thought they were sort of sexy chickens, but they’re not. They are not chickens. They’re on a different level. Then I realized, yes, she is becoming a guinea fowl. This makes sense. So I changed the title. I’m an expert on guinea fowls now if anyone needs one. In an early draft of the script, I had one of the characters say the parable, but then it came across too preachy, so I removed it, and then I changed it into the show.
You also have this incredibly unique opening shot of Susan dressed, I believe, as Missy Elliott in “The Rain” music video. It’s such an arresting image. Where did that come from?
Susan Chardy: I’d like to know too.
RN: Do you remember what I told you? What did I tell you?
SC: You said, and you gave me a little look. It was a little pause, and you said, “I just really, I love Missy Elliott.”
RN: I’ve always loved Missy.
SC: I thought she might give me something else. [laughs]
That’s the perfect answer.
RN: That’s why I paused, to think if there was some kind of subtext. No, it’s because I love Missy Elliott.
Susan, that was your introduction on film. So you’re introduced in this giant, larger-than-life Missy Elliott costume. What was it like to act in and later see yourself on screen?
SC: I mean, what an introduction! I loved it. I’m all about that glitz. It was lovely. Aside from being introduced in this spectacular outfit, knowing the journey that Shula goes through once you watch a film just made much more of an impact. Wearing the suit, knowing where it was going, was surreal in that moment. It was a weird space, being there myself, knowing where the rest of the movie was going. But as an audience member, you would see it differently than I would. But that moment, wearing the suit felt amazing. It was very hot, but it was an interesting outfit to wear and to be introduced onto screen with.
You mentioned where this image arrives for Shula by the end of the film, and obviously, there are all these little surreal and absurd moments and images throughout the film that build. Rungano, in terms of screenwriting and shaping the film, whether while you’re filming or in editing, how do you build that sort of surreal, absurdist tone that lands on this intense, emotional moment?
RN: It’s a difficult task maintaining the tone because you don’t want to make light of something. You also don’t want to feel like you’re being provocative. I just wanted to focus on how I experience funerals in Zambia because it takes a toll on you. So often, you make inappropriate jokes and you’re locking yourself in a pantry and talking smack about someone. These funerals tend to be a place where people convene to gossip. It sounds awful, but I think because in Zambia funerals are for people who are living, not for the dead. So you don’t necessarily have to know the person who’s died, but you do know the person who is affected by the death or related somehow.
So, funerals end up having hundreds of mourners sometimes. I couldn’t wrap my head around this for a long time. But a lot of people don’t know the person who died. It ends up being a way of channeling your frustration or your grief or energy. You’re just sort of trying to just get through it because you’ve got so much to do. You’re grieving, but you’ve also got organization to do, the buying of things. I wanted something to capture that idea.
But also, when talking about serious things, sometimes, if they’re similar, you stop listening after a while. At least I do because I’ve got a toddler brain. You just want to take in a different place for a bit. It’s also another way of avoiding talking about death because people avoid talking about stuff all the time. But on set, I never tell people—I hope I didn’t tell you, Susan—I never tell people to be funny. I just put them in a situation and see what transpires, right? So I don’t say, “Oh, be funny.” I just figure out what I want for the scene and then build it from there.
Susan, your performance is very internal. It’s a lot of reactions on your face to things your character sees and remembers. How do you build that internal journey and then put it on screen?
SC: First of all, it was fascinating to play Shula because she comes from a place where, as you said, she internalizes everything. And I’m not like that in my life. I’m someone who… I vocalize probably a little too much. Rungano is laughing because I’m a lot sometimes, and I know it; I own it. But Shula, she is completely different. So for me, it was great to inhibit this space of really internalizing and allowing everything to hit you, like, literally. Most of us tend to back things off from things. We don’t want to deal with stuff. But I had to let everything hit and sink in. And you have to let everything, take everything in to decipher it, and then see what you’re going to allow yourself to give back out.
So, the challenging part of playing Shula was having so much to say but being heard through silence. But I found it fascinating and just focused on the little girl, the little Shula, I focused on her. What did she deserve? What should she have had? That was my main thing, thinking about young Shula and what she deserved.
Shula and her two cousins, Nsansa (Elizabeth Chisela) and Bupe (Esther Singini), have this amazing chemistry, where they feel like girls who have probably grown up together and have seen a lot of great things and terrible things together. How did you cast the three actresses, and did you do any rehearsal before putting everyone on camera? How do you build that chemistry?
RN: We didn’t rehearse. We found Susan four days before we shot the film. Everybody was panicked. I think we auditioned her on Saturday, and we were shooting on Wednesday. I’d already decided from her audition tape. I love the auditions. I ask people to talk a lot, and then they do the pages afterward. I’m not that interested in the pages because I think auditions are very stressful for actors, especially nonprofessionals, so oftentimes they mess up. Susan didn’t, but oftentimes they just do, so I just want to get an idea of them talking. So she was talking, and at first I went, “No, no, no, she’s not it.” She was too like how she is now. She’s very open; she doesn’t hold things back. But there was a moment in the interview where I saw Shula, really a moment, and that’s what I was looking for.
While searching through all the Shulas, I kept reassuring the producer because he got really worried. I said, “I just need a moment. If I see that moment, we can make it into something.” But I didn’t see it in anything that I was watching. I’m not fussy, honestly. I just needed a second. Then, I saw just this tiny moment. It couldn’t have been more than three seconds. And I thought, “Yeah, that’s something. That’s her.”
We didn’t get to rehearse before the film because she was just flying in, so that was just luck in terms of the chemistry. That was down to them because we didn’t have time to rehearse together. But they clicked straight away, Susan and Elizabeth. They use that time between scenes to talk and look out for each other on set. I think the language helped because Susan and Elizabeth are both fluent Bemba speakers, which helped with the relationships. I often left them alone, and I was lucky they got on. Because if they hadn’t, I would have had to figure it out and do some exercises. There’s a way to do it, when you’re scrambling on set, to fake chemistry in a way. But they were BFFs straight away.
My casting is normally a long process. I do workshops and auditions. I put Elizabeth through loads of workshops, but I knew immediately that she was Nsansa. I do open castings, so we get a mix of professional and nonprofessional performers. I leave it open so I can discover different types of people. I think we were casting nine months before the film started, even longer in Zambia. But finding Susan was the most difficult one. At one point, I auditioned for the role of Shula. I auditioned for that role because I felt at one point I should just do it, so I auditioned for it. Obviously, I was terrible. But she was perfect, and thank God, because everybody was bracing themselves. But when I knew, I knew.
Once you get into the funeral section of the film, which is most of the film, you have so many aunties. I’m curious, Susan, when you’re acting opposite so many different actresses: How do you hold a scene like that together, where you’re the lead, but there’s so many people on screen with you?
SC: One thing that brought us all together was, first of all, the respect and the love for Rungano on the project, which united us immediately. So there was this unspoken feeling that we’re all in this together and giving this everything. Being around these women who reminded me so much of my mum, my culture, and where I had come from was really special. I didn’t feel like it was a burden to be the lead. You’ve got a sense of duty when you are the lead, and you’ve got to ensure everything’s going a certain way. But I never let that be my main focus, let that wane on me, or let it be part of my process. Whilst I was out there, it was just staying true to what I envisioned for Shula and how I wanted to play her. It was about being authentic to her, being immersed around all these women and the culture, and thinking about how I would be if I were around my real aunties and elders at a funeral.
I learned a lot on set because there are certain things that I didn’t know happened. I left Zambia before I actually could go to funerals. But having spoken to my younger sisters who stayed in Zambia, I know that many of these things happen, like when you’re not allowed to stand up and leave the room. I didn’t realize it, so I wouldn’t stand up and go after we delivered the lines. The women were very involved in telling us what would not happen in an actual funeral. Rungano had done all her research for the film, but she was so respectful. When they would point out something wrong, she would say, “Oh yeah? Tell me more. What would really happen here? Maybe I’ve missed something.”Because in one tribe, it can be different from another one. So we would discuss how to play the scene. It was a learning process. I love discovery. I love feeding off everything around me. So for me, going back to a scene and shooting it differently is like a whole new scene. I love that because it gives more depth to how I play the scene and the sense of discovery.
So working with all those women was just incredible. Sometimes, it was actually spiritual. When they sang, my God, it was just the most beautiful thing. Sometimes, when Rungano would say ‘cut,’ it would be haunting because I would still hear someone trying to get themselves together. I could hear that murmur of pain. Everyone would slowly return to themselves, but you could still hear one or two people in that moment. That was quite haunting and just special. To be a part of that energy was incredible.
Rungano, I wanted to ask about your collaboration with DP David Gallego, with whom you’ve worked on both features. You have so many outdoor shots, so many long tracking dolly shots, and lots of intricate, specifically for outdoor and nighttime cinematography. What’s your process in working out how you will film certain scenes?
RN: We always start by going through the script, and he wants every scene explained so he knows what motivates him with the camera. It also helps us condense the script. So if something can’t motivate the camera somehow, we’re like, but do we need that? We start questioning everything, and we tidy it up. David and I, we’re opposite. I don’t know how we get on because he’s very organized. I like a bit of chaos, frankly. And I like the filming to be organic.
We got the dolly because I wanted the film to be how old-fashioned films were made. You just have a big camera, so you have to pick your shot. We’re not just going everywhere handheld and not making choices. We both don’t like a lot of coverage, which is a detriment, I guess, in the end. We like to make choices and then discuss where it will go. So, of course, it translates to this dolly. Whenever the dolly came out, I thought, “Oh, God, why did I do this?” But those choices end up being great.
The darkness was not supposed to be as dark as it was. But we liked it as a happy accident. It was during the color grading process that we realized it was very dark. I want everything to be natural because, in Zambia, things are dark. When you have power cuts, it all shuts down, and it gets very dark. I didn’t want him to be scared by the darker skin tones, which I think many DPs are. I love David because David doesn’t exotify Africans or Zambia. I sometimes find that when you’re speaking to your DP, they’re fixated on the skin color. He is, in a way, just to get the bounce right. But he doesn’t over-light someone just because he’s scared for them to be in the dark or something. In terms of exoticifying, he doesn’t dwell on the cultural bit of it, which I think other DPs would, because they find all this fascinating and their work becomes so anthropological. I always say I don’t want my films to feel like anthropology or like a National Geographic version of a film.
So we have a lot of discussions, but we always build it from nothing. We never really discuss a lot of references. We just discussed the story and how we want to tell that story in the most simple way. That’s the approach so that somebody who doesn’t speak Bemba could understand it, or if you watch the film with the volume off, you could still know what’s happening. That’s pretty much our approach.
I have to ask about the party scene in the library and where it came from. I’ve never seen anything like that.
RN: David always tells me that film is not a democracy. I’m like, yeah, but I like to get everyone’s point of view. Susan touched on that regarding all the women chiming about how their family behaves at funerals. It slows down our scene because everyone wants to have input, but what I like about that is that it brings out these gems. So, the library scene was initially meant to be in a zoo where people and animals party together. We went to the zoo and I realized it was too big to film. It didn’t give any sense of space when we did the recce.
I wanted something absurd to reflect that Shula’s father is not a serious person. So one of my production designers said, “Do you know there’s a pool in the library?” and I was like, “Sorry. What?!” It was a fountain pool, and she thought it would be great. We went to see, and I’m like, “Yeah, this is where we’re filming this scene. They haven’t put the fountain on for decades, but we said we need this pool. So that was through her. Whenever I have a thought, I tell everyone, and when everyone knows what you’re looking for, you get great suggestions back. That is how I like to work.
My last question is for both of you. What do you hope people will feel when this film is over?
SC: You go first.
RN: I made this film because I have a lot of questions. I would like people to feel bittersweet about it. I constructed it so that you get what you want from it. I want some people to come out of it feeling depressed or disturbed and others to feel uplifted. But I want to provoke thoughts about all of the things we raise. I don’t know if you can change people, but a little bit of a thought where you pause and think about this conspiracy of silence, why we are complicit to that. Because that’s the question I’m asking myself, to be honest. I want people to feel moved enough that they ask those questions.
SC: One thing that many people, including me, felt was rage, but I wouldn’t want that to be the only thing people take away. Sometimes rage can be good because it can force you to act on something potentially. But I think for me, I would want them to feel a sense of courage. Having followed Shula, Nsansa, and Bupe through this journey, I’d want them to feel a sense of courage. I think I want them to feel a sense of empowerment. Empowerment and courage, hopefully, more than rage. Or, at least let the rage empower you to do something about it.
RN: I like that one. That’s my go-to emotion.
It evokes that rage, but by the end, you feel they’re empowered to finally help the next generation. And that’s powerful.
RN: We tried to shoot it but never got a confrontation scene. We felt we needed it because people will say, “Oh, she needs to have agency. She needs to confront this.” But every time we were shooting the scene, and Susan witnessed this, it didn’t ring true to me. It felt very fake. So we thought, if we evoke that feeling in the audience, maybe this is what we were aiming for, because the film itself just doesn’t allow it.
SC: It’s pretty special to let the audience create their own ending. The two most powerful scenes for me, watching it, were that scene at the end and the library scene where you don’t even see the top half of my body. I felt while we filmed it that it was going to be interesting. I wanted to know what it would feel like to have a conversation like that with your dad. While we were filming, I felt it. But then you do a project, and you let it go. But then, the moment I saw that shot on screen, it brought everything back, and it was a powerful shot to watch. I don’t know if it’s just because I shot it, and it brought all those feelings back, but I think that is a really powerful shot. A few people have mentioned that shot to me as well.
It’s a very emotional thing to see because you feel the way that Shula feels in that moment, precisely because of the way it is filmed.
SC: It’s so clever, and Rungano, obviously, knew what she was doing.
RN: David and I have a thing with hiding faces. So that’s why we shot in darkness so much. Also, because there are all these secrets in this family, we ensured you don’t see people’s faces or their eyes, which can be frustrating. It’s frustrating when you’re editing, and people say, “We don’t see their eyes!” But that was the idea. In the film, characters often look away, and their heads are cut off. That is how we expressed the theme of hiding things and not facing up to things. That’s why the final shot is filmed how it is; it’s the most direct way to express that theme.