‘On Becoming a Guinea Fowl’ Review: Watchful Eyes

Shula, the watchful heroine of the quietly stirring “On Becoming a Guinea Fowl,” doesn’t seem cut out for bold gestures. She’s reserved, at times to the point of standoffishness and given to introspective silences. There’s admirable grace to her composure but also an air of practiced caution. The only really obvious thing about Shula is that she has recently returned to her comfortable, suburban family home in Zambia, and that she would clearly prefer to mind her own business. When a mystery reopens old traumas that, in turn, lead to a bruising cultural reckoning, Shula soon finds herself minding everyone else’s business, too.

That discovery turns out to be the corpse of her Uncle Fred splayed on the road that Shula (the subtly magnetic newcomer Susan Chardy) is driving on one night. En route home from a party, Shula is wearing large sunglasses and a glittery silver headpiece that suggests a bedazzled ancient military helmet. She looks like a glamorous alien, which she is, in a way. When she steps out to look at the body, you see that she’s dressed in a ballooning black jumpsuit. If you inflated it, she could probably float away. Given what happens — and the mysterious girl who briefly materializes near the corpse — it’s a surprise that she doesn’t try.

Rungano Nyoni, who was born in Zambia and grew up in Wales, knows how to make an entrance, and so does Shula. She’s a great character, and while her arresting introduction grabs you from the start, Shula keeps you tethered throughout. Hers is a story of discoveries both minor and monumental, one that’s flecked with troubling visions and an escalating sense of urgency. Shula keeps her cool until she doesn’t, and shortly after finding Fred’s body, she is buffeted by different forces, including her sprawling family, acquaintances and a complex patrimony that threatens to engulf her. (This is Nyoni’s second narrative feature; her first was “I Am Not a Witch,” a 2018 drama about a Zambian orphan accused of witchcraft.)

Shula’s discovery of Fred’s corpse leads to a series of encounters, by turns comic and anguished, in a winding story about family secrets, cultural norms and generational trauma. It’s heavy, at times, painful, though not crushingly so. Much like her protagonist, Nyoni maintains an observant, quasi-analytic distance — the camerawork is suitably steady, calm — as the story grows more complicated and long-buried secrets are disinterred as the family arranges things. Even amid the growing emotional tumult, Shula keeps it together, which keeps the viewer at a remove. This gives you breathing and thinking space (you watch, too, and wait), but Shula’s coolness also leaves you unprepared for when she sheds her reserve.

Much of “Guinea Fowl” centers on Fred’s funeral, an elaborate ceremony that seamlessly condenses the story’s themes. Not long after Shula finds Fred’s body, his corpse is trucked back to the family home and mourners quickly begin descending. Some arrive at the door on their knees in postures of supplication singing “death comes crawling.” Shula briefly flees, but relatives force her back home, which the female mourners effectively transform into a de facto stage. Some of the women wail with performative gusto, others gossip and sneak off to share drinks in the wings. At one point, Shula’s cousin Nsansa (Elizabeth Chisela), a boisterous drunk, speaks her painful truth; so does another cousin, Bupe (Esther Singini).

As it unfolds, the funeral ceremony becomes a kind of movie within a movie, at times edging into near-documentary specificity. In the funeral’s rituals and formations — in how attendees gather and separate as they strike alliances, voice complaints and settle scores — it also elegantly expresses the familial, cultural and social intricacies of Shula’s world, both its attractions and its burdens. Inside the house, women crowd the kitchen preparing food, including for a smattering of men seated outside. When Shula asks what some would like to eat, she does so on her knees, echoing the supplicating mourners. As Nyoni does throughout, she doesn’t embellish this scene; she doesn’t need to. She says all she needs to with each lapidary image, with every resonant silence and with the undaunted power of Shula’s gaze.

On Becoming a Guinea Fowl
Rated PG-13 for adult themes. Running time: 1 hour 39 minutes. In theaters.