Bunny Chow: Know Thyself

Three young Johannesburg comedians bowl around the city, mock each other, flirt, drink, chat, try to persuade their girlfriends that they’ve only eyes for them, and drive off for a weekend at a rock festival. ‘Bunny Chow’ isn’t like most of the new wave of films we’ve seen from South Africa in recent years.

Rejecting township tales, HIV stories and reminiscences on struggle and apartheid, this low-budget, b&w road-trip yarn is unashamedly modern and trivial, unafraid to indulge in the melting pot of language and traditions and the devil-may-care priorities of the country’s new monied, confident, cosmopolitan youth.

Unsurprisingly, the film is part-funded by MTV and there’s a certain slickness beneath its sense of improvised dialogue and throwaway storytelling. The film is probably much funnier for young South African audiences, and the laddish behaviour of its main players – all of them actual comedians – may put some off, but for British audiences it offers an intriguing slice of modern Jo’burg life.