The Journey of the Hyena, by Djibril Diop Mambety

(Written for Expatria)

Going alone to the cinema can barely be classified as a forbidden pleasure, but if the amount of joy derived from it was proportional to its degree of perversion it should be the first of the 8 (no longer 7) deadly sins. At least some movies have that effect.

The Journey of the Hyena is quite likely not a very good movie for contemporary standards: it lacks the rythm, the plot, the dialogue, and the post-production that would make it so. The Journey of the Hyena is purely a product from the 70s -- hippies, drugs, bell bottom pants and all included. The pace is set from the very first moment via the smoky voice of Josephine Baker singing (caressing)the beauties of Paris, the painfully present main character of the story. "Paris, Paris, Paris" -- she sings -- "you're paradise on earth." And slowly but surely the two main characters weave a series of unlikely plots in order to reach it.



It is strange how timely some movies can be. The director could not possibly have anticipated the echoes that this story, essentially a story on the longing to migrate to Europe and the cleavage between different generations of Senegalese, would have right now. Yet that same longing, that "I'm going to Europe no matter what" attitude, as if "Europe" was the solution to all problems on Earth, remains present in the Dakar of today. The solution that is more an escape than an answer. Paris, Paris, Paris, the song keeps on playing, under the scorching song, over the water of a sea that feeds the illusion.

I liked the story. I liked its pace, so French, so unique, so Godard. And yet it is much more than a French movie, it is (from this humble perspective) one hundred percent Senegalese. An amazing work of cross-cultural syncretism for $30,000 in 1973 featuring nudity, animal cruelty, long silences, and broken dreams. Definitely not everyone's cup of tea.

But what I enjoyed the most about the movie is the way it sinks into the streets and spaces of Dakar. Having spent the last two and a half months licking its misery, I found it painful to see what I already knew: that the Dakar of the 1970s much better off than the Dakar of 2009. My jaw dropped when I saw the Square of the Independence, now a dilapidated sort of public space, in its splendor. The cars running on the city's freshly painted streets were the same that one can find today -- same models, same license plates -- only 40 years younger and with doors that didn't belong to any other car before. This was the time when Senegal, and particularly Dakar, was the shining star of West Africa, with the best university, the best port, the best everything. So many things have changed, and yet, not surprisingly, the heartache remains: all means are legitimate if the end is on the other side of the ocean.

Or at least so it seems.