Touki-Bouki (Djibril Diop Mambéty, 1973) (Patreon)

It seems to me that the revelatory thing about Touki-Bouki (and yes, I'm going with the onscreen hyphen) is that while Mambéty clearly has something to say about colonialism, modernity, and superstition, he allows himself to communicate those ideas in a sidelong, almost incidental manner. When you compare Touki-Bouki to the films from this period by Sembène, the difference is striking. The older filmmaker, who has been called "the father of African cinema," clearly felt all the weight of that continent's need for expression through film, and took it upon himself to make overtly didactic, allegorical movies.

Thanks to Sembène, Mambéty has been freed from that historical pressure and can find his film along the way instead of meticulously mapping it out. His film is a little bit Godard, a whole lotta Jean Rouch, and held together by sheer forward propulsion. Those totemic horns on the handlebars of Mory's (Magaye Niang) motorcycle serve notice that he and Anta (Myriam Niang) are coming through and will gouge anyone who means to stop them.

Mambéty clearly loves his protagonists, but he's not unaware of their faults. Mory is a slick hustler on the make, the kind of person the Brits call a "wide boy." And Anta's self-possession and powerful sexuality make her charismatic but also a little joyless and dour. Early in the film when some random guys remark on "those flat-assed college girls," they are addressing her (relative) androgyny in a very patriarchal society, but also suggesting that the "uneducated" local women are to be valued for their own brand of power and independence.

In some ways Touki-Bouki is a crypto-remake of Breathless, although without the fatal finale. The young couple's mission to make their way to Paris and leave Dakar behind is genuinely felt -- they are looked at with suspicion or disdain by most of the people around them. But it's also an example of the colonial mindset, the false promise that fleeing to Europe will afford them the opportunity and sophistication Senegal lacks. The fact that they essentially thwart their own escape says it all. Mambéty looks to France for expressive means, but he can never really leave his homeland. It will follow him wherever he may go.

Touki-Bouki is a scattershot film, one that veers off in multiple directions. Early in the film we hear Anta's mother badmouthing Mory, and soon after we see a bunch of local guys beat him up and try to trash his bike. After various other near-meaningless excursions, such as the botched theft at the wrestling arena, or Mory ripping off clothes from the home of the wealthy gay man Charlie (Ousseynou Diop), the pair seem ready to make their escape. 

Then something weird happens. Mory leaves Anta on the boat to France while the races through town to find his bike, an object that the plot had pretty much left behind. When he finds it, and discovers one of the horns has broken off, that's it. He collapses as if mortally wounded. Mambéty is playing an amusing post-colonial game here, combining the Freudian fetish with its more traditional, anthropological version. And if there is a single dominant point to Touki-Bouki (and I'm not certain there is), it's that tradition and modernity exist side by side in Senegal, and often clash. Almost every establishing shot shows a dusty village in the foreground, skyscrapers in the background. In its spatial logic, and in the psyches of its main characters, Touki-Bouki is a tale of uneven development.