The Tale of the Hyena from African ‘Godard’

If you are familiar with African cinema, you might know that Senegalese filmmaker and novelist Ousmane Sembène is considered the father of African cinema. You may also be aware of his contemporaries, like Mali's Souleymane Cissé, Nigeria's Umaru Ganda, and Mauritania's Med Hondo—each a luminary in their own right. Yet, among them, Djibril Diop Mambéty, a filmmaker and poet from Senegal, stands out as uniquely different. He is often called the "Jean-Luc Godard of Africa" despite having never met Godard himself.

Last year marked the 50th anniversary of Mambéty’s most renowned film, Touki Bouki. Released in 1973, it was Mambéty’s first feature-length film. Thanks to its poetic beauty and revolutionary storytelling style, the movie won the International Critics’ Award at the Cannes Film Festival and the FIPRESCI Award at the Moscow Film Festival that same year. Even today, Touki Bouki is considered one of Africa’s greatest films. But why is this film so significant?

In Wolof, the language of Senegal, "bouki" means "hyena." Touki Bouki translates to "The Hyena’s Journey," a name inspired by African folklore. A peculiar trait of the hyena is that it never leaves its territory. In the film, we see this in the character of Mory (Magaye Niang), who roams around on a motorcycle with a cow's horn mounted on it. In Africa, cows are indispensable assets and symbolise the agricultural lifestyle. Thus, Mory's bike represents Africa’s identity, while he becomes its shepherd.

The film opens with a herd of cattle being herded by a young boy. We then see a few cows being taken to the slaughterhouse, where their throats are brutally cut—an unsettling scene. But why did Mambéty include such a graphic image?

The slaughterhouse is a metaphor for post-colonial Senegal, where the new native ruling class has replaced the former French colonisers. They have turned the country into a butcher’s shop. Desperate to escape this brutality, many young people dream of going to Europe, particularly France. Mory, too, dreams of escaping to Paris with his girlfriend Anta (Marème Niang). But he is burdened by debt and finds himself resorting to robbery, theft, and even prostitution.

While they get more entangled in crime, chasing the fantasy of Paris, a French song by Josephine Baker repeatedly plays in the background: “Paris, Paris, another heaven within heaven!” Yet, Mory’s dream eventually shatters. He is, after all, like a shepherd bound to the land. Although fully prepared to leave for Paris, he returns to Dakar. Mambéty made this film when the illusion of the dreams shown by the local bourgeoisie was starting to crumble for young people.

It’s important to note that Mambéty admired Senegal’s revolutionary and Robin Hood figure, Ya Dikone. His film Touki Bouki is a dazzling display of revolutionary editing and narrative style. One scene shows Mory riding a car adorned with the U.S. flag, stark naked on the streets, making a bold reference to the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes—suggesting the nakedness of the imperial power. In another scene, Mory and Anta act like wealthy Europeans, throwing money around, while the locals sing and dance, eager to entertain and collect the money. Mambéty uses these moments to highlight the mental impoverishment of the nouveau riche and the ordinary people.

Unlike many others, Mambéty never had any formal training in filmmaking. He made this debut film at just 28 years old, impressively combining art and society in a raw and poetic manner. Think back to the scenes of Mory and Anta's union juxtaposed with the gushing blood from a slaughtered animal’s throat—how seamlessly Mambéty ties them together!

Mambéty only made two feature-length films and five short films in his entire career, yet each deserves discussion. With so few creations, Mambéty has left a lasting mark on the history of cinema. As Senegalese film scholar Dia Thierno Ibrahima once said: “a deep vein of realism ran through Sembène’s work, like Louis Lumière, whereas Mambéty was like Méliès: poetic, magic and realist.”