A reflection of the movie
Touki Bouki, the journey of the hyena is a story about two youngsters who are presented in the movie trying to escape their home country. The youngsters are apparently running away from the poverty and backwardness of their country, Senegal (Dembrow, 2012). The two, a boy named Magaye Niang ‘Mory’and a girl Mareme Niang ‘Anta’, are seen trying to collect funds and exploit connections that would make it easy for them to leave the country. They set to leave their native home in France where they believed they would improve their livelihood and get better jobs with better wages. This is a norm within most of the African countries as natives leave their countries to look for greener pastures in the west.
To finance their escape, the two decided to look for ways to raise their fares to leave the country for Paris. The films show two lovers who represent the battle between tradition and change in the African society. The pair was prepared to do everything possible to get an opportunity to get out of the country to the city of Paris, which according to the song we hear playing repeatedly in the movie is a kind of paradise. The two lovers were determined to leave the slums for the city in pursuit of a better life. However, it is important to note that Mory had relocated from the village where he was a shepherd to Dakar again in search of a better life where he operated a motorcycle.
After he was disappointed by life in Dakar, he decided to run away from the continent entirely and go to Europe where he hoped things would work out in his favor. Their ambition to change their livelihoods drove them into crime and they resolved to steal a gay man’s money and clothes. They also drove in his car. This is a representation of the situation in the entire continent of Africa. Young people are growing up to find a very hostile and complex world. Governments in the African countries are less concerned with the welfares of their young people.
Inherent tensions
In desperation, young men and women are left with only one choice to find their own ways of managing their livelihoods. The striking poverty being the driving force, many young people resolve to violence and illegal practices in an effort to help themselves out of the poverty they find themselves. The movie is based on a typical African setting considering the adversities Mary had to conquer in order to finish his journey. The is about a number of themes including youths, dreams and ambitions, love, alienations, as well as fear of justice (Ellerson, 1997).
Many Africans have left their native land to the west only to find that life is more unbearable in the cities than it is back home. They encounter the hostilities in the city and going back to their native country becomes surprisingly the dream. There is a notion as depicted in the movie that creates a utopian imagination of Paris. The two lovers think that the city will solve their problem and that by leaving their redundant country things will be better for them. This is a notion held by a number of Africans particularly the young people who envision going out of the continent.
However, history has taught that the prospects of getting a better life abroad are dismal and the probability of suffering is quite very high. A number of Africans are serving jail terms in Europe while others are begging in the streets after failing to secure a job as they anticipated. There have also been reported cases of death of Africans in the Diaspora. The movie also brings about the clear attachment of African countries to their former colonial powers.
Senegal was a colony of the French, which is the reason why more Senegalese are flocking to Paris. Young people are not confident to make a good living from their country and this brings the temptation for youngsters to leave the country for greener pastures. The movie clearly shows an apparent completion of the home country versus the colonial powers. An element of modern colonialism also crops up with the tendencies of the western countries to entice poor Africans with petty job opportunities.
Themes
The movie has engaged the themes of hybridity and individual marginality as well as isolation, which are common in the African setting (Blackholecinema, 2011). Pursuit for better life in different and far away land is a norm in the African setting and Touki Bouki confirms this. They fantasized the city of Paris and would do anything to get there. This brings up the question of unfamiliarity versus familiarity. The couple was looking for ways to run away from a land they were familiar with to a land they knew very little about. As many young people do, the couple is blindly setting out for a journey with the assumption that life will get better.
Reflecting on this particular film, there is a lot of the African culture to be learned. The movie also demystifies the mentality that abroad there are better and guaranteed to succeed. It has shown that in both worlds, there are challenges and an individual has to work very hard to earn a living. To some extent, the movie deliberately shows life to be even harder in the foreign land than at home. The film represents the entire African continent and the practices of Africans as a society. The African continent is characterized by high levels of poverty and violence. Young people in Africa are frustrated with the lack of jobs hence they resort to criminal practices. This is the situation across the entire continent especially among the youth.
Superstition is also depicted in the film. This further shows the way of Africans livelihood and give the movie the African mood. The movie however is not a typical African story because it doe does not engage the normal African linear progression in its story line. However, the uses of thematic elements are synonymous to the African tales (Dembrow, 2012). Mory represents the majority of protagonists who leave their villages to explore an unknown land. He is presented like a folk hero a factor that gives the movie the African setting. His transition from tradition into modernity is a symbol of a rite of passage from childhood to adulthood (Ukadike, 2011). Concisely, Mary had a dream and a quest for success and he had to see his dream coming into reality. The journey of the hyena is therefore a journey of an African youngster setting out to realize his or her dreams.
References
Blackholecinema, Touki Bouki (1973/Djibril Diop Mambéty). (2011). Web.
Dembrow, M. (2012). Touki Bouki/the Journey of the Hyena (1973, Senegal, 86 min. Web.
Ellerson, B. (1997). The Female Body as Symbol of Change and Dichotomy: Conflicting Paradigms in the Representation of Women in African Film. Web.
Ukadike, F. (2011).Hyenas. Web.