African Cinema Part 2 - Djibril Diop Mambéty

This section on African Cinema is devoted to director Djibril Diop Mambety, or more specifically, his films Hyenas and Touki Bouki. Touki Bouki is the film that launched Mambety into the spotlight of the global film community in 1973, and Hyenas is arguably his most well executed film.

Here are a couple of links about the source material for background information before reading any further.

Touki Bouki

Hyenas

While Hyenas and Touki Bouki are both films from Djbril Diop Mambety, in my estimation they are different in many regards, yet vaguely familiar in others. Hyenas is a tale of returning to Africa for revenge, while Touki Bouki is a film about escaping Africa through deception and theft. While those plot elements may seem different at first, they both hinge on the cultural concept of disconnection. In Hyenas, Linguere Ramatou returns to the town that previously had cast her out in shame. She traveled the world amassing a fortune, which she would later use as a mechanism of her own personal revenge.



In Touki Bouki, Mory and Ana decide to leave their hometown because of the disconnection they feel with their lives and the people associated with them. In both instances cultural disconnection drives the reason behind the events that unfold, although the paths to each are dramatically different. Mambety’s ability to weave together two seemingly unrelated stories lend to his credibility as one of the premiere directors from the continent.

The narrative structure of the films, in contrast to the plot elements however, is drastically different. In Hyenas Mambety uses a rather linear form of storytelling so that the audience never really experiences any difficulty in following the storyline. Characters are developed as the story progresses, with a bit of recall of the past garnered through stories told between the two main characters, and as a viewer you gradually learn more about the lives and personalities of the participants in the film.

Alternately though, in Touki Bouki the story is much less straightforward, and highly confusing when experienced through just one viewing. The European and Russian influenced techniques that Mambety employs tend to confuse and disorient viewers, while sending their senses spiraling into disarray. His effective use of montage in a French new-wave style of film tends to visually overload viewers with a shot to the jaw. Non-linear story progression swirls chronology right down the drain, and fragmented character interaction make connecting with the protagonists a bit of a daunting task for the uninitiated.

As indirectly mentioned in the previous paragraph, the film making aspects of these two films differ dramatically, thus changing the way viewers connect with the characters. The linear development of Hyenas allows audiences to connect with the characters, especially Dramaan, much more deeply than in Touki Bouki. In the latter film, the fragmented storytelling impedes an audience connection with Mory and Ana directly, due to the filmatic devices that Mambety employs. His technique is precise in both films, yet more receptive in Hyenas.

I feel that Hyenas is the stronger of the two films, yet not as culturally significant as Touki Bouki.