First impressions of On Becoming a Guinea Fowl

We’re unlikely to see another movie this year that opens with drama as mesmerizing and as surreal as what unfolds at the beginning of Zambian-Welsh filmmaker Rungano Nyoni’s new film. A young woman, driving home late at night from a costume party, slows down and then stops at the sight of a dead body on the road. We can tell from her expression that this isn’t just a random corpse — the discovery means something to her. Moments later, a young girl appears in the glow of her headlights, turns, and sends her a solemn, knowing glance.

For a moment, I thought of Clint Eastwood’s Juror #2, which also concerned the discovery of a body by the road late at night, and the crisis of conscience suffered by a protagonist who knows more about this than they are saying. One revelation after another took him on a slow, spiraling descent into a kind of madness as he struggled with denial and anxious rationalizations, trying to distance himself from the truth.

Here, the situation turns out to be so much different. Shula (Susan Chardy), the young woman at the wheel, is indeed connected to the victim. But as she makes calls to family members, as the police arrive, and as a community begins to gather for traditional funeral ceremonies, Shula will feel compelled to investigate and to expose what she learns about the killing, rather than striving to cover it up. At the same time, each step along that harrowing line of questions brings her closer to confessing secrets that she has kept carefully concealed.

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