Random Die Antwoord Made A Short Film, And Its Backstory Is Even More Absurd Than Its Plot (12 items)

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  (#1) The Short Was Inspired By A Set Of Holographic Car Rims

  Inspiration comes from many places. David Lynch spent years drinking milkshakes at Bob's Big Boy to dream up some of his more fantastic films, and Martin Scorsese finds inspiration in other films. Harmony Korine found inspiration from a set of holographic car rims. While he was browsing a website looking to purchase specialized car rims with spinning dollar bill signs for his own car, he found holographic rims instead. He was infatuated with the idea of rims that lit up at night.

  One idea led to the next; Korine began to think about what it would be like to have wheelchairs that lit up, then characters who would ride wheelchairs with holographic rims. A story began to develop on its own, and he knew Die Antwoord were the perfect people for his short. "They were exactly who would be riding in a wheelchair with rims," Korine told Vice.
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  (#2) Ninja Claims Any 'Tenderness' Between Him And Yolandi Was Forced By Korine

  Aside from showing off their South African zef sensibilities, Umshini Wam presents its two stars as having genuine affection for one another. It's no secret that Ninja and Yolandi were in a relationship at one point and that they even have a child together, but that relationship tends to be left out of their overall presentation and stage personas.

  While speaking with Vice, Ninja claimed Harmony Korine forced him and Yolandi to show tenderness to one another on camera. "I had to force them to do it," Korine said in response. "They were very apprehensive at first, but then they realized it was the right thing to do and they just went for it."
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  (#3) Locals Were Unbothered By The Excessive Use Of Side Arms

  While the short is set in South Africa, it was filmed near Korine's home in Nashville, Tennessee. Multiple scenes in the movie show Ninja and Yolandi brandishing side arms (an Uzi and "a Glock with an extended neck"), and while you might think it would freak out the locals to see two tatted up zef maniacs firing rounds in a river bed and in front of a restaurant, Korine said people were cool with it: 

  Everyone [in Nashville] was really accommodating. Ninja and Yolandi would walk around with those Uzis and everyone was really relaxed about it for some reason. Maybe because everyone here has [side arms].
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  (#4) Korine Claimed It Was Filmed On 15 Continents

  In the dual worlds of Die Antwoord and Harmony Korine, nothing is as it seems. While presenting the short film via pre-recorded video, Korine claimed that the short took years to make and that production took them all around the world. The director told audiences: 

  We made this movie across 15 continents and over a couple of years and a few million dollars and in the end it was all worth it. I won’t give away too much other than to say I’m really excited you’re there, I wish I was there, I hope you enjoy this and I’ll talk to you very, very soon.

   
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  (#5) An Absurd Video Message Introduced The Film At SXSW

  Before the short's premiere at SXSW in 2011, a video of director Harmony Korine was played to introduce the film. Korine, hardly the average director, leaned into the short's avant-garde nature and offered a preface that was both strange and fitting. 

  The introduction featured Korine wearing tennis shoes on his hands, sunglasses, and a Tupac sweater. In the video, the director apologized for missing the event while speaking in an oddly mannered and slow voice. Through the projection, he told the audience, "I got stuck in this other place filming something that was really ridiculous, but I had to do it."

   
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  (#6) According To Group, The Narrative Mirrors Their Actual Origins

  It's hard to know what's real and what's artifice with the musical duo. Are they really freaky zef gangsters who dream about being ninjas? Or is the whole thing an elaborate con to give two lifelong indie MCs a toe hold in the rap game? Does it even matter if either of those descriptions is true? 

  According to Ninja and Yolandi, the narrative of Korine's film is a close parallel of their own origins. Though they weren't rolling around in wheelchairs and robbing people, they were two individuals striving to be rappers but struggling to make it big until they tapped into the zef counter-culture. When Ninja's character says that he dreamt he “was, like, the greatest rapper in the whole f*cking world. The whole f*cking universe, actually. And, like, I drove through the hood in my electric wheelchair," it may have been reflective of Ninja's own wishes.
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  (#7) Ninja Claims They Aren't Really Acting In The Film

  Whether or not you believe that the duo behind Die Antwoord is deeply in character or not, Ninja is steadfast that they never act. While speaking with Jane's Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro about the realism of their short film with Korine, he noted that they don't like to act because they find it important to continue letting audiences know who they are. 

  Ninja told Navarro:

  [Korine] had a script, but he interpreted what we were about. Some of it was on, and some of it was off. We made it more realistic. Between Ninja and Yo-Landi, it had to be based on how we are. It had to be authentic. Yo-Landi was asked to be in this big movie, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, that David Fincher filmed, to play someone else. She said no to that. We’ve been asked by other people [to act]. There’s this director I f*cking love, Neil Blomkamp. He did District 9 and he asked me to be in this film called Elysium. But we don’t really want to do anything away from who we are at the moment. It would f*ck with it.
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  (#8) 'Umshini Wam' Was Meant To Be A Music Video

  Prior to committing to making a short film about their ascension to stardom, the duo simply wanted to make a music video. While speaking with Dave Navarro for Interview, Ninja explained the group was in pre-production for the video, but when Interscope told them they had to ask for a budget from the label rather than pay for it themselves, the duo scrapped their initial idea.

  Ninja says that this confrontation was the first step in the duo deciding to leave the major label. He told Navarro:

  Interscope just said 'No, you can’t pay for your own video.' We’re like, 'What?' They’re like, 'Can you send us the script for approval?' That was the beginning of the end. 
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  (#9) One Voice In The Video Is Apparently An Alien Who 'Sings With His Mind'

  The beginning of the short opens in the dark with a deep, electronically processed voice saying the title of the short over and over. As the voice continues to say "Umshini Wam," it begins to speak slower and grows deeper.

  Even though the voice sounds like it's being run through an effects generator, according to both Ninja and Korine, it actually belongs to an alien. Ninja told Vice, "It's the alien. You know, the big alien with the eyes that shoots rays of light. It's singing with its f*cking mind." Korine agreed, saying that the alien was "born screwed." 

   

   
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  (#10) It Shares Elements With Korine's 2010 Film 'Trash Humpers'

  Trash Humpers is a polarizing film that follows a group of geriatric creeps who commit lewd acts in public and wreak havoc. The film is presented without context, but it feels like a piece of found footage stretched out to feature film length. There's no narrative to speak of, and it exists purely to provoke. 

  Umshini Wam has the same chaotic spirit of Trash Humpers and shares the same location - both were shot around Korine's home in Nashville. The plots of the two films are also the same, specifically in that there is no real plot. Each movie is propelled along by its own madness until the audience finds release in the closing credits. 

   
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  (#11) Korine Calls 'Umshini Wam' A 15-Minute Feature Film

  Even though Umshini Wam clocks in at just over 15 minutes, Korine doesn't consider it to be a short film. While speaking with Vice about the film, he noted that as narrative films are shrinking, he feels that he was able to get out the amount of story in this piece that some longer films take hours to get out. He explained: 

  We thought it should be like a music video without any music, or without any proper songs. The music was DJ Hi-Tek, so we decided to make it more like a short film, or a feature film that was condensed. It is a feature film, but now feature films are only 15 minutes long.
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  (#12) It May Be An Adaptation Of Bonnie And Clyde

  1967's Bonnie and Clyde follows the titular dust bowl gangsters as they grow from small-time crooks into a pair of the most famous lawbreakers of the 20th century. Umshini Wam follows the same narrative structure, minus the nihilistic ending of Bonnie and Clyde. 

  Ninja, like Clyde Barrow, wants to see his name in lights. He believes he's going to be the most famous rapper in the world, but in order to do that the pair have to get "real." In just 15 minutes, Ninja and Yolandi get side arms, commit grand theft wheelchair, and slay a racist business owner. While they don't become famous, they do transform from wannabes to real gangsters.

   

   

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