Djibril Diop Mambéty’s Touki Bouki

From the opening scene to the closing credits, Touki Bouki (Journey of The Hyena, 1973) is a wall of sound. The film uses jump cuts, colliding montage, dissonant sound, and a combination of premodern, modern, and pastoral elements to express and explore the blending of cultures in Senegal. But it is the music, above all else, that creates a sense of urgency and excitement that mirrors the characters' desires to break free from the constraints of their traditional life to pursue their dreams.

Directed by the Senegalese filmmaker Djibril Diop Mambéty, Touki Bouki is a rough, blistering, and fascinating sonic palette. Every voice and noise has a place in the film—from the Peuhl flute as the herds arrive to be slaughtered in the abattoir to Josephine Baker’s sparse but effective “Paris Paris Paris, c’est sur la terre petit un coin de paradis (Paris, Paris, Paris, this haven of heaven on earth)” to every time the protagonist starts his motorcycle.

The film’s nonlinear story focuses on two young turncoats united in discordance for their Colobane surroundings. Mory (Magaye Niang) is a cowherd country boy who drives a moped mounted with a zebu skull and a Dogon cross; Anta (Marème Niang) is a university student nursing a barely masked contempt for her elders’ traditions. Touki Bouki, an early proponent of magical realism in African cinema, doesn't just employ fantastical elements within the fabric of the storytelling, it uses music to drive the narrative revolving around the allure of Mory and Anta’s reckless ambition, as they carry out a series of illicit activities in the hope of fleeing to France.

If Touki Bouki is notable for its imaginative spins on oral tradition, it is equally striking for its soundscapes. As a sonic soup, Touki Bouki is often sustained by overlaying or brusquely bordering arrangements comprised of: indigenous music, a modern score played largely on untuned percussion, the repetition of Baker’s jaunty chanson française “Paris, Paris, Paris” as a leitmotif for the protagonists’ hopes; a recording of French soprano Mado Robin singing Jean-Paul-Égide Martini’s dreamy classical love song “Plaisir d’amour,” and doleful American guitar funk as the film reaches its melancholic climax.

The film is known for how it uses music to illustrate the characters' feelings of dissent and their desire to break free from their society’s constraints. Mambéty breathes Africa in his film ​​by integrating his idiosyncratic taste in aesthetics with extraordinary sound efficiency. Just like Mory and Anta, the film’s music and sounds are characters who tell us their own story. Perfectly mixed with visually robust costuming and landscapes, the music evolves within Mambéty’s panoramas, revealing both the beauty of Senegal and the protagonists’ larger-than-life behavior, steeped in their deep culture of urbanity.

The use of traditional African music as well as Western music serves to highlight the cultural divide between Senegal and the West, and the characters' attempts to bridge this divide. The traditional music contrasts the modern setting of the film commenting on Mory and Anta’s efforts to escape from their traditional roots and embrace a more modern way of life. At the same time, the film’s Western music underscores their desire to connect with the culture of the West. Mory and Anta are drawn to the glamour and opportunity that they believe the West represents, and the use of Western music reflects this desire.

After these sonic and musical scenes early in the film, music seems to drop away except for three distinct scenes that define the protagonists' journey and struggles. After a series of failed attempts by Mory and Anta to obtain money for their journey to France, Mory suggests that they visit his friend, Charlie (Ousseynou Diop), a wealthy gay man who has a sexual interest in Mory. While at Charlie's opulent mansion, in an intense discrepancy to Josephine Baker’s “Paris, Paris, Paris” Mambéty uses Mado Robin’s voice over almost surreal scenes at a private pool by the coast, where the wealthy members of Senegalese society enjoy their affluent lifestyle. There we hear the coloratura soprano’s rendition of Jean-Paul-Égide Martini’s aria “Plaisir d’amour.”

Later when Mory and Anta steal Charlie's clothes, jewelry, and car, in the film’s most surreal passage, Mory stands stark naked on top of the car singing a griot song: “Here comes a griot from the M’bai family." The scene transitions into an extravagant parade where people line up by the street to greet Mory and Anta.

In the subsequent scene, Mory and Anta's car is stopped on an empty, dusty country road by his community of people singing his praises. Mory’s Aunt Oumy (Senegalese mbalax singer and actor Aminata Fall), a sorceress at first angry with Mory for defaulting on debts to her, leads the group of praise singers to dance in a highly ritualistic manner as they cheer on Mory with incantatory vocals.

The next incidents of music build a more sophisticated set of meanings through the manipulation of a recording by Josephine Baker, which punctuates the narrative pivotal point: an escape to Paris by Mory and Anta. Paris is a city that appeals to people from all cultures, as evidenced by the inclusion of Josephine Baker's chants "Paris, Paris, Paris” in the film. The song is used throughout the film to support Mory and Anta's desire to escape Dakar and experience the city's beauty and paradise.

On their way to the port, Josephine Baker’s incantatory chant of “Paris, Paris, Paris,” which evokes the city as a “coin de paradis (It’s a corner of paradise on earth),”

reproduces as a hypnotic sense of freedom for the protagonists. Exploiting the music’s connotations of a “golden age” European metropolis, Mambéty completely reconfigures the song, extracting the first two lines of Baker’s extended refrain and reducing it to a repetitive motif, thereby suggesting the illusory disposition of the protagonists.

This cheerful poetry to Paris is smoothly juxtaposed with the film’s somber verdict. When they arrive at the Port, Anta climbs the ship and waits for Mory to join him. But Mory turns back and starts running down the port. To portray the seriousness of the scene, Mambéty uses Stefano Torossi and Sandro Brugnolini psychedelic jazz song “Interrupted” as the soundtrack for Mory and Anta's quandary, reflecting on the chaos and disorientation in the streets of Dakar. The song builds to a crescendo and morphs into soul-jazz when Mory can’t bring himself to board the departing ship while Anta, after patiently waiting for Mory, departs with the ship to the dreamland.

The use of music in Touki Bouki is masterfully done, and it adds to the overall atmosphere and emotional impact of the film. As a key component of Mambéty's narrative style and commentary, as well as Touki Bouki’s central theme, the music evokes emotions that drive the story to its melancholic conclusion.

Touki Bouki is streaming on the Criterion Channel.