The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Tuesday, March 8, 2016 — 5

‘Gods of Egypt’ is the
good kind of terrible

By JACOB RICH

Senior Arts Editor

Hey, you. Yeah, you. The person

in the back who’s always bitching
about how Hollywood movies
aren’t original
anymore.
Oh,

“everything’s
a reboot or a
sequel”
this,

“corporate
cash-grab”
that. It’s time
for you to put
your
money

where
your

mouth
is

and pony up
for “Gods of
Egypt,” the most original film of
the year. And guess what? This
commercial and critical failure is
almost worth watching for a num-
ber of reasons. Bear with me.

For nearly every second of this

movie, I couldn’t believe what I
was seeing happen onscreen. Not
because the effects are convinc-
ing or the action awe-inspiring —
certainly, neither is the case — but
because I was repeatedly shocked
at the amount of CGI-drenched
lunacy that is packed into each
frame of the picture.

I’m supposed to summarize

the plot for you, but where do I
even begin? This is a movie about
shredded 10-foot-tall God-bros
(Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, “Game
of Thrones,” and Gerard Butler,
“300”) with gold blood that turn
into giant robot eagles and fight
with laser beams. They hang out
with scantily-clad babes and have

shiny crystal organs that they can
take out like Lego pieces. But it’s
also a buddy movie? And a road
movie? And there’s a 15-minute
break in the middle to show a
scene where Ra (Geoffrey Rush,
“Pirates of the Caribbean”) drags
the sun, held by giant chain,
around the FLAT, DISC-SHAPED
EARTH (I’m sure Tila Tequila
and B.o.B. will love this movie),
and then fights a giant shadow-
leviathan thing to make sure it
doesn’t eat reality?

Oh, what a mess. What a

strange, fascinating mess. One of
my favorite gaming websites gives
out a “Hottest Mess” award at the
end of every year — if we did that
at The Michigan Daily, “Gods of
Egypt” would be a shoo-in. Every
shot in “Gods of Egypt” feels like
it had its own director and cin-
ematographer, coordinating their
craftsmanship over a laggy Skype
call. I’ve seen bad CGI before, but
it’s been a while since I’ve seen
CGI this egregiously bad. But I
can’t look away, and I don’t want
to. Some of this stuff — a few
“Raiders of the Lost Ark” rip-off
scenes, some Power Rangers-style
fight scenes — is a whole lot of fun.

I’ve been trying to figure out a

good film comparison to ground
this review in something familiar,
but “Gods of Egypt” honestly feels
like no other film I’ve seen. Per-
haps the closest thing to it is the
“Clash of the Titans” franchise,
but “Gods of Egypt” is much more
visually
interesting,
imagina-

tive and all over the place. Plus, it
lacks Sam Worthington, which is
always a plus.

Really, “Gods of Egypt” is much

more like a video game. It reminds
me most of “Bayonetta” and “God
of War,” violent character action
games in which oversexualized
deities slice and dice mythological
creatures within a vaguely reli-
gious conflict.

I truly appreciate the creativity

that went into “Gods of Egypt.”
It’s evident writer/director Alex
Proyas (“I, Robot”) had extraor-
dinarily ambitious ideas and was
assisted in establishing a solid
vision by a really terrific team
of concept artists. But there’s a
tinge of disinterested incompe-
tence that drags “Gods of Egypt”
through the dirt before it shows
up to the prom. With terrible
accents and lackadaisical deliv-
ery, Gerard Butler and Chadwick
Boseman (“Get On Up”) clearly
don’t give a shit about their perfor-
mance any time they’re onscreen.
The trying-too-hard jokes fail to
get laughs much more often than
they succeed. Several of the main
Egyptian characters are embar-
rassingly cast mayonnaise-white.
And as I said, the CGI is dated
and messy, seemingly worked on
by a multitude of uncoordinated
effects houses.

Despite these cringe-inducing

elements, I can almost see “Gods
of Egypt” becoming a cult film
over the next few years. Perhaps
it’s saying something about Hol-
lywood’s tendency to reuse and
recycle that I found such an incom-
petently structured (and way too
long, by the way) film so enjoyable.
It’s frustrating how nearly recom-
mendable this film is.

FILM REVIEW
‘Mustang’ gallops
with gentle realism

By MADELEINE GAUDIN

Daily Arts Writer

Last Sunday, “Mustang” —

the first film from Turkish-
French director Deniz Gamze
Ergüven
—

narrowly
lost

the Oscar for
best
foreign

film to Hun-
garian
Holo-

caust
drama

“Son of Saul.”
If that was the first you’ve
heard of “Mustang,” it won’t be
the last.

Though heralded as the Turk-

ish “Virgin Suicides,” “Mus-
tang” shares only its structure,
not its substance, with Coppo-
la’s cult classic. The film follows
five orphaned sisters growing
up in a coastal Turkish town
who, after a neighbor sees them
playing with male classmates
on the beach, are imprisoned
in their grandmother’s home to
preserve their marriageability.
However, as the title might sug-
gest, “Mustang” is full of a wild-
ness and passion that allows it
to both lament the girls’ cap-
tivity and commend their resil-
ience.

The girls function as a sort of

collective unit, each one more
or less representative of the
whole — with the exception of
Lale (Günes Sensoy), the young-
est sister and the film’s narra-

tor. It is her rebelliousness and
energy that seems to set much
of the film in motion. Her love
of soccer sends the girls on their
largest rebellion: a secret outing
to an all-female soccer game.
She is the audience surrogate
— through her eyes we see the
movie and feel her anxiety and
restlessness.

Ergüven crafts her film with

a gentleness that allows the
space the girls inhabit to be
both beautiful and oppressive.
Shots full of lush greenery and
golden sunlight stand in bril-
liant contrast to the coldness
and severity with which the
girls’ lives are handled.

Similarly, despite its nega-

tive portrayals of marriage,
“Mustang” is full of love. The
girls love each other with an
unrivaled fierceness. Beacons
of hope outside the family, like
Yasin and Lale’s teacher, love
the girls and help them find a
world full of hope.

That isn’t to say that “Mus-

tang” is a beautiful, rose-col-

ored cry for help. The girls
are not manic angels awaiting
rescue. They are not passive
or quiet. They are fierce and
independent. The walls close in
on them because they push out
against them.

Likewise, Ergüven does not

hold back on the social commen-
tary. The oppression of women,
especially young women, and
the unfaltering fascination with
their purity is at the forefront.
Their sin was not playing on
the beach with boys, but rather
their sin was being born girls.
Their most important feature
is their marriageability. Their
sin of femininity can only be
absolved once they are tied for-
ever to a man.

And while it might be easy

to dismiss this world as being
completely Turkish (as a way to
say it is completely not Ameri-
can), Ergüven crafts it in a way
that makes it universal. The
girls, as much as they func-
tion as individual forces, also
function as representatives of
all girls, all young women who
are held back by walls literal or
figurative.

This is how “Mustang” tran-

scends its labels as a “Turkish
‘Virgin Suicides’” or a “modern
‘Pride & Prejudice.’” It becomes
something
wholly
its
own,

belonging as much to its cast and
crew as it does to every girl who
has ever yearned for freedom.

TV REVIEW
‘Mavis!’ explores the
influential chanteuse

By SOPHIA KAUFMAN

Daily Arts Writer

“I’ll stop singing when I have

nothing left to say … and you
know, that ain’t gonna happen.”

This is one

of
the
first

lines
in
the

new
HBO

Documentary
Films produc-
tion, and it sets
the tone for
the rest of the
film. “Mavis!”,
which
pre-

miered Feb. 29
on HBO, is a semi-biographical
look at the career and influence
of Mavis Staples, a soul and
gospel singer and civil rights
activist whose 60-year career
shaped the music and mood of
the 1960s and beyond. A typi-
cal documentary in form and
length, “Mavis!” relies on the
spark of its subject to propel it
along.

Mavis began performing in

earnest once her father heard
her sing and realized they could
make a family career out of it.
Her recounting of her child-
hood is heartwarming; when
people heard her for the first
time, they didn’t believe it was
a little girl. “ ‘That’s got to be a
man or a big fat woman,’ ” she
laughs, quoting them. “ ‘That’s
not a little girl.’ ” The first time
she ever got an encore, she

didn’t know what that word
meant — and because she had
only prepared one song, she
repeated it twice.

She became the lead singer

of the Staple Singers when she
was just a teenager; she and
her father, “Pops” Staples, were
the only constant performers
through the history of the band.
Their style was a blend unlike
anything else being produced
at the time; it fit into the pat-
tern of popular gospel music,
but it drew from the kind of
music played in the 1920s. The
strongest material of the docu-
mentary is found in the footage
of Mavis’s performances, both
from her past in the Staple Sing-
ers and as a solo artist later on.

By the time someone remarks

in the documentary that Sta-
ples’s career has lasted as long
as the Rolling Stones’ — and
had as much influence — it isn’t
hard to believe, though she isn’t
as well-known in popular cul-
ture as other gospel singers.
At one point, Staples casually
mentions how Bob Dylan wasn’t
just a fan of the Staple Sing-
ers, but wanted to marry her.
It’s throwaway statements like
this that remind us how rich a
career Staples has had, adding
a layer of touching depth to the
documentary.

“Mavis!” takes some time

getting to the civil rights por-
tion of her story, but once it gets
there, the documentary picks

up steam. Staples talks about
how she started performing
“freedom songs” after experi-
encing the influence of Dr. Mar-
tin Luther King, Jr. One of the
most mesmerizing segments is
her account of watching little
children attempt to board a bus
during the integration of pub-
lic schools in Little Rock; that
experience is reflected in her
music.

“Any freedom song that we

wrote was because of the move-
ment,” Staples says.

The warm, rich footage of

her provocative music is com-
pelling, both artistically and in
the messages that, as she points
out, are still relatable.

“Mavis!” feels longer than it

is; it’s a relatively quiet film for
such a powerful subject. It’s not
a hypnotizing piece of work,
but it does justice to its subject,
and Mavis herself is delight-
ful to listen to. The confidence
she displays in her powerhouse
vocal performances is mir-
rored in the longer interview
segments; you can’t help but
believe what she says. Toward
the end of the documentary, she
reiterates the sentiments with
which she opened.

“I’ll sing until I can’t sing

anymore,” she says, laughing. “
... and if ya’ll don’t see me here
singin’, look for me in heaven.
Somewhere,
I’ll
be
walkin’

those streets of gold, singin’
round God’s throne.”

SUMMIT ENTERTAINMENT

“Okay Spartans, let’s get in formation.”

FILM REVIEW

B-

Gods of
Egypt

Rave &
Quality 16

Summit

Entertainment

B+

Mavis!

Film First

HBO

Documentary

Films

“

No, I don’t think there is
a ‘Caine Prize Aesthet-
ic,’” NoViolet Bulawayo

responded during a recent Q&A
in the University of Michigan’s
Hopwood
Room.

This isn’t

surprising to
hear. In 2011,
Bulawayo
won the
Caine Prize
for African
Writing, an
annual liter-
ary award
for African
original
stories, for her story “Hitting
Budapest.” The story is the
first chapter of her novel, “We
Need New Names.” Along with
the award and 10,000 pounds,
the winner also often accepts
the stigma of the “Caine Prize
aesthetic” — the idea that the
authors are conforming to
pre-existing notions that the
Western world, and the Western
judges, have about Africa.

In the Q&A, Bulawayo, who

moved to America from Zimba-
bwe as a young adult, went on to
describe the ways in which win-
ning the Caine Prize bolstered
her confidence in her ability
to write and sell a full-length
novel. But can we take her word
as a winner and beneficiary of
the prize that an aesthetic does
not exist?

I don’t think we can. This is

nothing against Bulawayo —
she’s an engaging intellectual,
and “We Need New Names” is
a fantastic book. But both her
story and its form in her novel
comply with stereotypical ideas
of poverty and brutality in
Zimbabwe. This is where I get
lost contemplating the Caine
Prize. Bulawayo’s novel is both

incredibly well-written and
an opportunity for a voice that
would normally be silenced to
be heard, a chance we cannot
take for granted. But her themes
of incest, starvation and child
neglect play into our ideas of
a place we’ve never seen. Our
construction of Africa is pieced
together from sensationalist
journalism and a lack of the
consideration for the ethnic
and geographic diversity of the
continent.

The Caine Prize, dubbed

the “African Man Booker,” has
increasingly come under fire for
catering to the Western world
at the expense of the literary
independence of the authors. In
2015, Zambian writer Namwali
Serpell won the prize for her
story “The Sack,” a nuanced and
enigmatic narrative of the rela-
tionship between two men who
love the same woman. (If you
want to read the story, set aside
an hour or two of your time.
It’s not long, but the confusing
nature of the structure lends
itself to rewarding new discov-
eries every time you reread it.)

Serpell’s triumph in win-

ning the prize struck the liter-
ary world as unusual for two
reasons. One: an author from
Zambia had never won the prize
before. In the fifteen years of
the Caine Prize, the winners
have been overwhelmingly from
Nigeria, Kenya, Zimbabwe and
South Africa, with some excep-
tions of Sudan, Uganda and
Sierra Leone. The recent influx
of winners from countries with
less established ties to Western
literature reflects the growing
diversity of the prize between
nations. The second reason
might change the course of the
prize forever. Serpell accepted
the prize and immediately
announced that she would be
sharing the 10,000 pound prize
with her fellow shortlisted
writers. Serpell later described
this to BBC Newsday as “an act
of mutiny …” It’s awkward to
be placed into this position of
competition with other writers
that you respect immensely and
get put into a sort of “American
Idol” or racehorse situation
when actually you all just want
to support each other.”

Binyavanga Wainaina, win-

ner of the Caine Prize in 2002
and LGBT activist in his home
country of Kenya, has also
spoken out against the burden
of the prize. Wainaina took to
Twitter, directly calling out
the prize, saying, “Caine Prize!
10,000 dollars and never ask
questions, coz literary intel-
lectuals shld never be uncer-
tain about who Rules African
literature.” Perhaps due to the
democratizing nature of the
Internet, writers are feeling
more at ease coming out with
their dissatisfaction about the
nature of the prize.

I recently had the oppor-

tunity to listen to Shadreck
Chikoti, a Malawian writer
who came to the University as
part of the Zell Visiting Writ-
ers series. Chikoti, who writes
in both English and Chichewa,
was selected to attend the Caine
Prize African Writers’ Work-
shop in Cameroon in 2011, and
his story “Child of a Hyena” was
published in the Caine Prize
2011 anthology. And yet, when
asked about his time working
in conjunction with the prize,
Chikoti said that in some ways
the prize went against “how
much I believe in the liberty
of an author … in people writ-
ing whatever they want.” He
expressed the pressure he felt
from officials to write a story
about stereotypes and tradi-
tions of Malawi, rather than
letting ideas naturally come.
But Chikoti recently broke from
the social construction of what
African writers can and cannot
write, in his publication of the
science fiction novel “Azotus
the Kingdom.”

Namwali Serpell, after win-

ning the prize, spoke similarly
of these pressures and of people
asking questions like “Are you
an African writer? What is Afri-
ca and its life?” The problems
we have with the Caine Prize
go deeper than problems within
literature. These issues reflect
our need to homogenize Africa
and the way we ask one writer a
year to write the single story the
Western world has assigned it.

Lerner’s confusing nature

lends itself to rewarding new

discoveries. Take the time to

e-mail her at rebler@umich.edu.

LITERATURE COLUMN

Problematic ‘Caine

Prize aesthetic’

REBECCA
LERNER

A

Mustang

Ad Vitam

The Caine Prize

homogenizes

western ideas of

Africa.

This won’t be
the last time
you hear of it.