Finally tracked this 1973 film down after watching and enjoying "Hyenas" by the same director earlier this year. Purportedly, "Hyenas" was the sequel to this, but that might be more in an emotional sense, as this film is vibrant with youthful desire, especially desire to flee the motherland of Senegal, while in "Hyenas" a bewitching/besmirched woman returns to Senegal after decades of being abroad.
Youth is what drives "Touki Bouki" - a mismatched couple of Mory and Anta, full of big dreams lacking even the smallest details. Their crime spree is more innocent than Bonnie and Clyde, or Oliver Stone's "Natural Born Killers." But there is that sort of recklessness that propels them from scene to scene.
And there is youth behind the camera as well, although his brother talks about the director's scripting ability in the bonus scenes, much of the film has a raw improvised flair to it. Capture an animal being slaughtered, work in some three-card monte, dig up some gris-gris by the shore, include lots of street and road life, Tarzan in a tree and a wicked knife bearing crazy lady and a skull in a treasure chest.
Most of the crimes and dreams fall short, but finally a trip to an ocean-side pool leads to a clothes-make-the-man-and-woman fantasy flight for paradise. Or at least Paris, Paris, Paris (noticed the cast notes highlights Josephine Baker for her singing in this, she an emblem for fleeing an unappreciative if not hostile homeland ).
Are there elements here of class divide, of colonialism and racism, sure. Toss in some interesting angles on sex, Anta has a defiant androgeny that I bet captivated the director. She might make a modern-day heroine/hero for many. It's that youthful frustration with problems a budding adult senses have been around too long, but somehow s/he feels they can, they must overcome.
Yet even as you dream of the refined ocean liner outbound, you see the rotting husk of a ship offshore.
The plot is a tad thinner here than in "Hyenas" but what was interesting was the choice Mory makes at the end, granted a bit obfuscated by that strange Tarzan-esque interference.
Ultimately the film captured the intoxicating chaos of youth, while delivering a more subtle sobering statement about how one's own liberty is enmeshed in one's surroundings, even when those surroundings feel as though they conspire against one.
A dilemma, with horns.
Youth is what drives "Touki Bouki" - a mismatched couple of Mory and Anta, full of big dreams lacking even the smallest details. Their crime spree is more innocent than Bonnie and Clyde, or Oliver Stone's "Natural Born Killers." But there is that sort of recklessness that propels them from scene to scene.
And there is youth behind the camera as well, although his brother talks about the director's scripting ability in the bonus scenes, much of the film has a raw improvised flair to it. Capture an animal being slaughtered, work in some three-card monte, dig up some gris-gris by the shore, include lots of street and road life, Tarzan in a tree and a wicked knife bearing crazy lady and a skull in a treasure chest.
Most of the crimes and dreams fall short, but finally a trip to an ocean-side pool leads to a clothes-make-the-man-and-woman fantasy flight for paradise. Or at least Paris, Paris, Paris (noticed the cast notes highlights Josephine Baker for her singing in this, she an emblem for fleeing an unappreciative if not hostile homeland ).
Are there elements here of class divide, of colonialism and racism, sure. Toss in some interesting angles on sex, Anta has a defiant androgeny that I bet captivated the director. She might make a modern-day heroine/hero for many. It's that youthful frustration with problems a budding adult senses have been around too long, but somehow s/he feels they can, they must overcome.
Yet even as you dream of the refined ocean liner outbound, you see the rotting husk of a ship offshore.
The plot is a tad thinner here than in "Hyenas" but what was interesting was the choice Mory makes at the end, granted a bit obfuscated by that strange Tarzan-esque interference.
Ultimately the film captured the intoxicating chaos of youth, while delivering a more subtle sobering statement about how one's own liberty is enmeshed in one's surroundings, even when those surroundings feel as though they conspire against one.
A dilemma, with horns.