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Simply A Masterpiece

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

The thick border separating realism from surrealism is thinned down evermore in each scene of this gem of a drama. Anarchic, exhilerating, and playful, Touki Bouki takes its viewers on a unique and memorable journey despite the occasional boring or overlong sequence having the power to, every now and then, bring the movie's high quality down a few notches. However, boredom is really subjective, and I still remained at least somewhat engaged in the film's characters, ideas, story, cinematography, and overall artistry even when the scene I was watching felt dragged out. The film is unlike most others, both style and story wise. Not too much really happens in the film, and the conclusion is somber, off putting, and strange in a way that recalls almost nothing else's I have ever seen. It mixes many different feelings and genres and textures and so on and so forth, the main characters are both lovers, but they never have a romantic scene together, they just sort of hang out and interact in a very real and enjoyable way. The film can be interpreted as a dark tragedy, but comedy lurks in almost every corner, and even reaches its high point during what may be the most intense scene in the film! There are moments involving interesting cultural traditions that allow non-Africans like myself to get a unique glimpse into this foreign society, joyous scenes of song and dance, anarchic avant gardism, ingredients of a prettily poetic pop, humor that hangs both high and low brow, surrealistic twists, mindbending editing decisions, many sequences directly inspired by French New Wave Cinema (Jean-Luc Godard in particular), and plenty more! And the film is barely even ninety minutes long, the plot is ridiculously simple, and the scale is mostly minuscule.

It is indeed hard to believe that over the years, the magic of Europe as a golden land of opportunities has not faded. It is also unfortunate that Europe continues to charm countless innocent, impoverished men and women from Asia, Africa and Latin America to risk their lives in order to reach European soil with the sole objective of making a lot of money. Some of these daredevils can be found in the Senegalese film 'Touki Bouki' directed by maverick Djibril Diop Mambéty. He has ensured that Senegal is not shown in any kind of bad light as hunger and scenes of poverty which have become regular features of other African films about Africa have been deliberately avoided. It is a mystery how Touki Bouki's comical situations have been termed as surreal. They are as close as possible to daily lives which prove out to be a great test for everybody. Watching the comic scenes with utmost attention, one realizes how some borders are closely guarded so that Paris continues to be far for many impoverished African youngsters. Lastly, some scenes of cruelty towards animals might drive some viewers to start hating this film. This is the only major imperfection which one can detect in this film.

There's a lot going on in this movie--including even a plot. But it's hard to make any sense of it. You have to give the filmmaker and actors the benefit of the doubt. It's so excellently shot technically and everyone seems to be having such fun, it very likely is the exact movie that the cast and crew intended to make. But the overall impression is of a self-indulgent farce in which we the viewers are not in on the joke.Even taken as a superficial jumble of beautiful, technically perfect images--and that's pretty much what I was able to take away from this movie--the film is a letdown because it could have been so much more fresh, satirical, and fun than it is.

It may be an old film, but I had to switch off after the first 30 minutes. There seemed to be horrific scenes of animal slaughter every so often for no real reason. It was horrible.No explanation, no real plot flow, very confusing, strange camera angles, repeated scenes, and too much pretentious symbolism. There were some parts of it that had real promise and made me giggle, but after a while I just gave up. Something was lacking. Something was lost in translation.So again a warning - scenes of barbaric animal slaughter. We're talking PETA video style images OK, stuff you should be OK with as a meat eater, but usually people are not.