Touki Bouki

"Touki Bouki," the 1973 film by Djibril Diop Mambéty, is undisputably a masterwork. Filled with imagery sometimes beautiful, sometimes shocking, telling its story with realistic and surrealistic scenes, allowing the viewer to infer - it is like nothing else. Senegal in the 1970s is depicted in its in-between state of modernity and tradition. The two young lovers at the center want to run away to Paris and one of them has a cool motorcycle memorably adorned with a cow skull. 

Actually I remember writing an essay about this movie for my brother's African film class (about how the fates of the two leads represent this bifurcation). This was around 2000-2001, before AI, so the prof was really pleased by how much my brother's writing magically improved and became so insightful hahaha. AI would never understand Touki Bouki or be able to make anything like it. It is deeply human.

Truly a beautiful looking movie. You can feel both the love and despair of Senegal.

Mati Diop, niece of the filmmaker who died in 1998, made a short film following to two leads a few years ago, and like their characters, one stayed in Senegal to herd cattle, and the other left. She ended up in Alaska, which is so fascinating! I learned she just died this year. Found a blog post that talked about her life.