#Kaoru Egushi

[roseillith]

HYENAS (1992) dir DJIBRIL DIOP MAMBETY  

[genevieveetguy]

Hyenas (Hyènes), Djibril Diop Mambéty (1992)

[moviemosaics]

Hyenas

directed by Djibril Diop Mambéty, 1992

[elcineasta]

Hyènes | dir. Djibril Diop Mambéty (1992)

[whileiamdying]

FILM REVIEW -- African Parable Of Greed / Laughter with bite in `Hyenas'

PETER STACK, Chronicle Staff Critic Published 4:00 am PDT, Wednesday, June 14, 1995

         HYENAS: Comedy from Senegal. Starring Mansour Diouf and Ami Diakhate. Directed by Djibril Diop Mambety. (Unrated. 110 minutes. In Wolof with English subtitles. At the Red Vic Movie House through Tuesday.)

In "Touki-Bouki" and other films, Senegalese director Djibril Diop Mambety has expressed a bitter sense that European and American capitalism has destroyed traditional values in Africa, replacing them with the urban hells of poverty, crime and disease.

The theme arises again in Mambety's funny, barbed parable, "Hyenas," opening today for a week- long run at the Red Vic Movie House.

"Hyenas" is seductively filmed, playing in spare but stunning ways on the colors of its setting, a remote desert village. The earth is a rich orange-red and the people wear primary colors as if in defiance of the drab desert landscape.

The village, once idyllic, has been sliding into terrible poverty for a number of years. "Hyenas" opens on scenes of the village fathers hocking the furnishings of town hall to pay their debts.

The story focuses on a kindly middle-aged grocer named Dramaan (Mansour Diouf). One day word arrives of the return of a former resident, a woman who once was the local beauty courted by the grocer, but who long ago departed. Now she returns as a grand lady, "the world's richest woman."

Hoping that Linguere (Ami Diakhate) will be generous and help the impoverished town out of its financial tailspin, the residents put on their finest clothes and declare the grocer the next mayor. They send him out to kiss up to the woman, since he once courted her.

In fact, she has returned to the village with the singular intention of sharing her millions to help her people -- but she wants something in return. She wants the villagers to kill the grocer because he impregnated her as a teenager but refused to 'fess up to being the father of her child. Not only that, he tainted their love by paying two other men to say they had also made love with her and either might be the father. Based on a 1956 play, "The Visit," by Swiss playwright Friedrich Durrenmatt, "Hyenas" is infused with a bitterly funny edge as Mambety twists the focus from one element of human folly to another, ultimately revealing a cynical vision of people selling out while packs of hyenas, vultures and other predators circle the village.

[elcineasta]

Hyènes | dir. Djibril Diop Mambéty (1992)

[elcineasta]

Hyènes | dir. Djibril Diop Mambéty (1992)

[elcineasta]

Hyènes | dir. Djibril Diop Mambéty (1992)

[elcineasta]

Hyènes | dir. Djibril Diop Mambéty (1992)

[elcineasta]

Hyènes | dir. Djibril Diop Mambéty (1992)