Welcome to the Panorama of the Mountains Blogging A to Z Challenge. This year I’m watching and reviewing movies from A-to-Z based on my ongoing Classic Movie Project. Most movies will be featured on one or more of three lists: AFI’s 100 Years…100 Movies (USA), The Sight & Sound Greatest Films of All Time (UK), and Cahiers du Cinéma Greatest Films of All Time (France). In some cases, I will be very creative in assigning a Classic Movie to a letter of the alphabet, and in a few cases the movie I watch will not be Classic Movies at all.
Title: Touki Bouki
Release Date: May 1973
Director: Djibril Diop Mambéty
Production Company: Cinegrit | Studio Kankourama
Summary/Review:
Before the opening credits of Touki Bouki are finished, the film depicts the slaughter of cattle in graphic detail. So I knew this would be a tough film to watch. In fact, slaughtering animals is a repeating motif of this film. If you are squeamish, consider this your warning.
The nation of Senegal does not have an extensive film industry, but Touki Bouki stands out as a highlight of the 1970s golden era of Senegalese cinema. The film draws influence from the French New Wave and relies on some deft editing. Scenes from the present, past, and fantasy are intercut, with some images repeated multiple times in the film. At times it feels as surreal as Un Chien Andalou and other times it feels like an music video from the 1980s. The edits create contrasts between natural and urban settings, the ancient and modern, and the African and colonised.
The story is about a young man, a cowherd named Mory (Magaye Niang) who drives a motorcycle with a cow skull on the handlebars, and a young woman, a university student named Anta (Mareme Niang). They meet in Dakar and decide to run away together to Paris where they hope to make their fortune. Much of the film depicts their attempts to steal the money they need to travel to Paris. But really the plot is secondary to the imagery. I confess that I don’t quite “get” this movie, but I do appreciate what Mambéty is doing.
Rating: ****
Panorama of the Mountains 
::skip::
My Tull for the day:
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I take it you’re not into animal slaughter, then. Apart from that I like it better than the Goddard and Truffaut movies it was influenced by.
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