Touki Bouki
MAMBETY, 1973
3 STARS OUT OF 5
Ever sit down to watch a film with someone and find that maybe your selection doesn't fit your audience? Today, I watched Touki Bouki for the first time, with my father, who is a great sport and just likes to watch movies; however, it was kind of awkward for me because of what Touki Bouki is. And what it is, is a strange series of scenes and images that cycle and recycle, which create this odd and surreal fantasy of two lovers, Mory (Magaye Niang) and Anta (Myriam Niang), seeking a way to get to France and away from their home of Dakar, Senegal. It's disorienting and, at times, baffling, in terms of meaning. Is it good? I'm going to ask myself three key questions, questions that David Friedman told fellow critic and journalist Ann Hornaday she should ask herself before writing a review:
1. What was the artist trying to achieve?
2. Did they achieve it?
3. Was it worth doing?
In the introduction to Touki Bouki on the Criterion Channel, Martin Scorsese talks about how Mambety was going through a difficult time when conceiving this film and wanted to "make a lot of things explode." Suffice to say, he was looking to make something that was a drastic departure from traditional cinema, even as it was being made in Africa. It's clear that he sought to make the viewer uncomfortable, while also exhibiting what seems to be a multi-generational desire in Senegal, the urge to get away and make a better life in France (see: his niece Mati Diop's Atlantics, which came out last year).
Now did he achieve this, or didn't he? This level of interpretation is easy if you're watching Long Shot, just take the humor, the politics, and how the characters develop, a distinct three-act plot, very few surprises in regards to cinematography and editing, and voila - you decide if we needed another bro-tastic comedy where the guy gets a way too smart, way too pretty gal. But with Touki Bouki, how do you even know? Here's as far as I'm willing to go until I become a Touki Bouki scholar (way off in the far future, or possibly another life):
It succeeds at the beginning and the end, through the imagery of butchering the zebu, to show a raw, anxious, angry feeling about simply being in Dakar. It somewhat succeeds between the opening and closing scenes in its dizzying sequences showing the couple try to pull of absurd schemes to get money for their Paris trip. My dad is still singing "Paris, Paris, Paris," and I think the point was to get that stuck in your head, which is this dusty old tune in French that talks about how heavenly the city is, and is perfect for the fantasies dancing around in Mory and Anta's heads. There are a lot of strange omissions of action throughout, and I'm not ready to assign them all high artistic merit. For example, Mory and Anta go to a stadium where there is are people - looks like probably wealthy people - watching men wrestle in the dirt and cheering along, so that they can rob the stadium of the money. When they creep up on the police officer guarding the money, they look at the trunks next to him to discern which is the one with the dough. And then, we see the trunk they chose on the top of a taxi, driving who knows where, and how they got it or where they're going with it not explained at all. In another, they steal some clothes, and suddenly end up in a parade waving at admirers. The post-wrestling sequences is inscrutable, but the parade sequences has a humor and lightness about it that does a good job reflecting the joy in the characters, and when it continues with the people from their village, it gets even zanier, though feeling a little silly and indulgent, even for this film.
One major issue I have with this film, is how Mory got out of his jam toward the beginning of the film, when he was roped up on their vehicle and driven through town. This occurs when he's going to find Anta at the university, and the point of the scene was likely to show the arbitrary mean-spiritedness of college revolutionaries at the time and criticize people who front as high-minded. But it's a part of the plot - yes, there is one - and feels disconnected from the rest of the story. Even if there is an answer to how this flows into other parts of the film, the transition is very poor, in a film that otherwise has its own internal rhythm and logic.
I'd say that Mambety probably achieved his aim, but I struggle with the view that the film is as accomplished as I've seen others assert, and which is obviously asserted by it being on this list.
The final question,
Was it worth doing?, is probably yes for nearly every film on the Sight and Sound list. All of these are films with big dreams, and Touki Bouki probably has some of the biggest. It seeks to break a mold, to scald, to instigate trouble. It seeks to paint an honest picture of Dakar, with a tip of the cap to neo-realism in many of its shots, as it pursues its avant garde ends. And it wants to make us laugh, too. It's super funny. I probably could've laughed more, but was feeling a little of that pressure from subjecting my dad to this odd experience. Nevertheless, even he seemed to be interested in what this film was, as I started to read interpretations to him from my desk here. If anything, you will want to at least try to understand it. That's probably a good sign that it was worth doing.
I do find myself asking an uncomfortable question, though: Can the worth of any experimental film be justified using the reasoning I gave above? You can put just about anything to film, edit and stitch it together in a radical way, put it out to the masses, and if there are loaded images, ironic music, and crazy happenings, among any number of elements appreciated by others who are sick of the CINECAST!ing status quo, a person could say that you did something special, maybe even extraordinary. I think Mambety's vision is important because of what he's illustrating about his home, the difference in classes, and even contrasting it with the racist perspectives of several white European visitors. He pursued his vision wherever it took him, and he had the care to do the editing and bring in music that would support this surreal journey. Thus, I think you can discern the quality in Touki Bouki v. Another Random Experimental Film.
Last note that I couldn't fit in above: This film portrays homosexuality. It's way, way unexpected. It was made in 1973, the year my dad graduated high school, and my dad, whose gay, noted that nobody even around him in Michigan ever talked about the possibility of being gay. Touki Bouki portrays Charlie, the gay man, who beckons for Mory to join him in the shower as Mory steals his clothes and car, as just another person. Nothing he does seems to make fun of or demean gay people at all. It's another talking point definitely worth discussing in regard to this film.