Touki Bouki (1973)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

The acting in this movie is really good.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

The thick border separating realism from surrealism is thinned down evermore in each scene of this gem of a drama. Anarchic, exhilerating, and playful, Touki Bouki takes its viewers on a unique and memorable journey despite the occasional boring or overlong sequence having the power to, every now and then, bring the movie's high quality down a few notches. However, boredom is really subjective, and I still remained at least somewhat engaged in the film's characters, ideas, story, cinematography, and overall artistry even when the scene I was watching felt dragged out. The film is unlike most others, both style and story wise. Not too much really happens in the film, and the conclusion is somber, off putting, and strange in a way that recalls almost nothing else's I have ever seen. It mixes many different feelings and genres and textures and so on and so forth, the main characters are both lovers, but they never have a romantic scene together, they just sort of hang out and interact in a very real and enjoyable way. The film can be interpreted as a dark tragedy, but comedy lurks in almost every corner, and even reaches its high point during what may be the most intense scene in the film! There are moments involving interesting cultural traditions that allow non-Africans like myself to get a unique glimpse into this foreign society, joyous scenes of song and dance, anarchic avant gardism, ingredients of a prettily poetic pop, humor that hangs both high and low brow, surrealistic twists, mindbending editing decisions, many sequences directly inspired by French New Wave Cinema (Jean-Luc Godard in particular), and plenty more! And the film is barely even ninety minutes long, the plot is ridiculously simple, and the scale is mostly minuscule.

(Flash Review)All good films should open with an 'authentic' cow slaughter. Kidding but this film did it. It was the main character's job but I think the 2-3 animals slaughtered during the film were for real but then actually used for people to consume as they normally would. Aside from those scenes, the film is about a university student who is tired with his life and wants to move to Paris. So he tries to earn a little money or steal it or steal things to help him get to Paris all while riding a motorcycle with a cow skull on it. There's the Easy Rider connection. Ha. The film is very poorly paced with a loose and abstract story without any satisfying payoff. There was an attempt at a metaphor between the motorcycle and cows but it was lost on me.

An African film here about youth, about the thirst to escape from a place that parches it and the bike ride through dirt roads out to sea where a ship sails for Europe. But I want to avoid merely a museum visit or an aesthetic token from a faraway place, I want the heart that pounds behind appearances and gives rise to their breeze of color. What heart here?First are the things he says about the home that is left behind. Symbolic cows being led to slaughter and cut to the young lead riding his motorbike with cow horns on the wheel. A stolen chest, supposedly full of money to pay for a DeGaulle statue but it contains a corpse.These are the things the filmmaker knows exactly what he wants to say about. They're also the least interesting to watch for me. The young lead being wrestled by leftist students is intercut with cows being wrestled before the slaughter. The dear bike stolen by a savage white man and left broken while he's extracted with merely a broken leg. Not without nuance, but some of it is as didactic as we make fun of Hollywood.More tantalizing is the journey through these to outrun them, even more so once you realize this is the same journey the filmmaker himself made from that same port. A yearning for freedom, but the desired freedom is a life of material comforts in Europe, what every boy his age would dream about, cafés and girls. Meanwhile the girl meekly tugs along behind her childish man. There's a sense that she quietly yearns for more; but she also feels beautiful in the (stolen) pink suit and red hat, as any girl would. I like films where youth is embraced with its dreams and folly, this is one.But also a deeper heart, things which the filmmaker doesn't know how to express clearly but vaguely feels stirring. There are a few of these where the surface of the film is rippled by some hidden vortix that seems to rage in the deep, like when the girl thinks he has drowned. If the journey is Godard, this is Pasolini. This might be part of what some reviews note as sloppy technique. True. This is a man still trying to fathom how images can surround a feel.So this is it here, a journey where as these two lovers flee, they get caught up in situations that tear from them images of who they are and what their surrounding world is like, images the air takes along which become the film. In the end one self is left behind, the one who has not outrun this world.

I wanted to see this movie because I read about it on a list of political films that were praised in a local free newspaper (The Washington Free Press). The movie, filmed in the west African country of Senegal, does contrast the great divide between the haves and the have-nots; graphically so.However, the film style seems to be along the lines of the French new wave artist Jean-Luc Godard. I've read Godard is a "genius" when it comes to film -- but I think it depends on your perspective. I've enjoyed his films "Week End" and "Masculine-Feminine" but when it came to "Pierrot le fou," I just had to shrug. That's kind of how I felt about "Touki Bouki." If you are interested in seeing a very in-your-face story about two young lovers trying to find the money to leave Senegal for France, this is the film. Though be forewarned, it doesn't always make much sense! My rating: 5