Hyenas

A hallucinatory comic adaptation of Swiss avant-garde writer Friedrich Durrenmatt’s play The Visit, which in Mambéty’s imagining follows a now-rich woman returning to her poor desert hometown to propose a deal to the populace: her fortune, in exchange for the death of the man who years earlier abandoned her and left her with his child. Per its title, Hyenas is a film of sinister, mocking laughter, and a biting satire of a contemporary Senegal whose post-colonial dreams are faced with erosion by Western materialism.

The follow-up to his much acclaimed Touki-Bouki, Djibril Diop Mambéty’s Hyenas is a master at the height of his abilities. From the meticulously crafted cinematography by Matthias Kälin to the immersive score by Mambéty’s brother, Wasis Diop, the film pushed me to consider every frame of In Flames— how the visual language can capture the essence of a place, and by doing so, the spirit of its people. On a narrative level, watching the absurd struggle of the film’s protagonist, Dramaan Drameh, seeking safety in a system that is stacked against him, inspired the screenplay for my own debut.

Finally, the words of towering screen presence Ami Diakhate, who essays the role of the wealthy returning daughter of the soil Linguère Ramatou: ’The world made me a whore, so I’ll make the world a whorehouse.’ This is what it means to be from a hard place; the hard choices that you must make for survival. Karachi, the city I was born in—and the village of Colobane, on the outskirts of Dakar, Senegal—are places that are tied by their fight against neocolonialism, patriarchy, and the salty ocean tide. Hyenas is an essential watch for fans of world cinema, and I hope you revel in its dry humour and unique perspective on the capitalist world we all live in, where justice goes to the highest bidder.

Zarrar Khan, Leading Lights Curator

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