A young man rides through Dakar on a motorbike with a pair of zebu horns mounted on the handlebars. Behind him sits his girlfriend, Anta. Mory and Anta are restless and broke, and they dream of escaping to Paris. To get there, they plot to raise money by any means. Touki Bouki, released in 1973, tells their story in a style unlike anything African cinema had seen before, with jump cuts, surreal images and a soundtrack that mixes Josephine Baker with Senegalese music. Decades later, it is regarded as a masterpiece.
The director and the story
Djibril Diop Mambéty was born in 1945 in Dakar. He was an actor before turning to directing, and Touki Bouki was his first feature film. Touki Bouki is often translated as “The Hyena’s Journey.” The hyena is a figure in Wolof folklore. Mory, a cattle herder, and Anta, a university student, want to leave Senegal for France. Their attempts to raise money lead them into scams and adventures across Dakar.
Mambéty used fragmented editing, symbolic images and sudden shifts in tone, breaking with the realist style of many African films of the time.
Music, Cannes and restoration
The repeated use of the song “Paris, Paris,” sung by Josephine Baker, underlines the characters’ fantasy of France. The film explores migration, post-colonial identity, the pull of Europe and the meaning of home. Touki Bouki was shown at the Cannes Film Festival in 1973 and won an international critics’ prize at the Moscow Film Festival. In 2008, the film was restored by the World Cinema Foundation, founded by Martin Scorsese, bringing it to new audiences.
The film has influenced filmmakers and musicians worldwide. Images from it have been referenced in music videos and art.
Mambéty's work and Dakar in the 1970s
Mambéty later directed Hyènes (1992), based on a play by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, and short films. He died in 1998. The film is mostly in Wolof, adding to its authenticity. Touki Bouki appears on many lists of the greatest films ever made. The film captures Dakar’s streets, markets, beaches and slaughterhouses in the early 1970s, offering a vivid record of the city a decade after independence.
Mory and Anta spent the whole film trying to leave Dakar. The film they appear in has since travelled to more countries than they ever dreamed of reaching.
