Exposing the neocolonial spectre: How Djibril Diop Mambéty transformed African cinema
After being expelled from theatre school as a young adult, Djibril Diop Mambéty was a revolutionary and anti-conformist from the very beginning. Described as “the most paradoxical filmmaker in the history of African cinema”, perhaps due to the non-linearity of his career after a 20-year hiatus from filmmaking at his creative peak, the work of Mambéty offers a profound and perceptive insight into the lives of people living in Senegal, becoming a provocative backdrop to his tales of anti-colonialism and Western-imposed devastation. With no formal filmmaking education or training, Mambéty’s first film Contras City, made in 1969, is a short documentary following a conversation between a Senegalese man and French woman as they walk around the city, observing the complexities and vibrancies of everyday life.
However, Mambéty’s debut feature film, Touki Bouki, captured the attention of filmmakers around the globe. Although it wasn’t commercially successful at the time of its release in 1973, it was adorned with accolades and praise at the Cannes and Moscow film festivals, establishing Mambéty as one of the most exciting new voices in African cinema.
The film shows Mory and Anta, a cowherd and university student, on their journey to start a new life in Paris. It’s a poetic commentary on migration and colonialism, with visual metaphors of cattle being trapped and forced into enclosed spaces and shots of European-style buildings that loom over the couple in their search for opportunity. You can see the influence of French New Wave directors on the film editing style, with quick cuts and a surrealistic style that feels reminiscent of Pierrot Le Fou and Breathless; a ‘lovers on the run’ story with a political undercurrent that sharply reminds us of the reality at its core. French New Wave is associated with the merging of clear narratives and hazy montages, blurring the line between the inner and outer world of the characters, something that Mambéty uses to highlight the displacement of his characters.
At the time, African cinema was defined by its realism, and the humanitarian core in Mambéty’s work reflects the real problems that faced the Senegalese people at the time, which was created through a dream-like world that exaggerated this need for belonging and stability. The images conjured by Mambéty provide a necessary confrontation to Western viewers, eventually forcing you awake from this dream world and leaving you to wrestle with the atrocities our country has inflicted, with Mambéty saying that “the story shows how neocolonial relations in Africa are “betraying the hopes of independence for the false promises of Western materialism,” and how Africans have been “corrupted by that materialism”.
Many were eagerly awaiting for Mambéty’s next film after the success of Touki Bouki, but found themselves waiting a very long time. Mambéty then took an entirely unexpected move and waited twenty years before making another feature film, with only one short being made during this time.
His next feature, Hyenas, was released in 1992, an adaptation of Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s play The Visit, which was marketed as a partial follow-up to Touki Bouki. The film explores many of the themes found in his earlier work, with the corruption of money and power being a central focus, reflecting the fragmentation of his country due to Western interference that has torn apart many of its communities. Despite this, the film retains a hopeful core, emphasising the rebuilding of these communities and the strength of the people.
When asked about the political themes in his work, Mambéty said, “‘I feel that a filmmaker must go beyond the recording of facts. Moreover, I believe that Africans, in particular, must reinvent cinema. It will be a difficult task because our viewing audience is used to a specific film language, but a choice has to be made: either one is very popular and one talks to people in a simple and plain manner, or else one searches for an African film language that would exclude chattering and focus more on how to make use of visuals and sounds”.
Mambéty’s commitment to a new and unwavering vision was hugely important to the preservation of the history of the Senegalese people and the evolution of African cinema. Although he only made a few feature films before tragically dying at the age of 53 after a long battle with lung cancer, he has solidified his place within cinematic history as a bold and passionate visionary, with stories that are still relevant to the world today.
