Bunny Chow

2006

South Africa

B&W

Director John Barker

Global Lens Film Series

Distributed by First Run Features

English and Afrikaans, subtitled in clear white on black

Web: http://www.firstrunfeatures.com

Web: http://www.globalfilm.org

Reviewer: Bob Estreich

The Global Film Initiative selects films from around the world each year to tour the U.S. as part of the Global Lens Film Series “to promote cross-cultural understanding”. In the past I have found their films to be interesting because of the problems of the different cultures and their ways of handling them.

Three friends in Johannesburg are having the usual young male troubles with their lives, their girlfriends, and in this case, with a career in standup comedy. They decide that their best bet is to take a break and go to the OppiKoppi rock festival. Along the way they will stop at a gig their manager has arranged at a local pub.

It starts to go wrong when they find that the planned gig isn’t until the next week. It gets worse when Kagi, the oversexed one of the party, tries it on with the pub owner’s wife and nearly gets shot. At the rock festival where they have another gig lined up, one is arrested for trying to smuggle in drugs, but is released by a friendly security guard who knows one of the comedians.

It seems things are the same around the world, if the boys’ advice to each other is anything to go by. If your girlfriend rings you on your mobile, don’t answer, otherwise you’ll be answering to her for the rest of your life. “If you wanna get laid, dude, alcohol is sex’s best friend I’m telling you. “

Back at home, Kagi’s girlfriend has discovered she is pregnant and decides to go to Oppi Koppi to break the news to him. She discovers her boyfriend kissing another girl. After the inevitable fight, one of Kagi’s friends tells him it was bound to happen because of his past string of girlfriends, mistresses and casual sex partners. There is nearly another fight, but friendship wins out and they all settle down. Kagi reveals that he loves his girlfriend, but he is going to have a hard job winning her back.

Dave, the shy one of the group and the least successful comedian, is getting on very well with a girl he has met who turns out to be one of the festival organisers. Joey is hallucinating from drugs supplied by a friend who “doesn’t do drugs”.

There will be a whole string of problems to sort out when they get back to Johannesburg.

The film is not particularly funny considering that the actors are apparently among South Africa’s leading standup comics. Nor is it a drama, or is it that overused “coming of age” type of film. It is just a good film about a bunch of good friends doing their best for each other. As we follow them through the film we see that, in spite of the multicultural South African background, they are just a bunch of young guys having young-guy-type problems. If there is one jarring note in the film, it is the use of American slang like “bro”. The characters could have been a little better developed, and the script tightened up a bit, but overall the film is fun and quite enjoyable.

And incidentally Bunny Chow is apparently a heavily stuffed hot sandwich, a local favourite.

This review will appear in Volume 2 No.4 (2009) of the digital and print edition of Synergy Magazine.

If you came to this page directly (and missed our menu), click here to go to the Synergy Magazine front page. (http://www.synergy-magazine.com)