Screened at The Frida Cinema
“He was a handsome beast.”
As our lead characters sneak their way onto a ship boarding to France, a security guard with a baseball bat is shown and focused on exclusively three times despite our characters having surpassed his presence. Djibril Diop Mambéty decides to still disclose an extra’s timeline even after our protagonists have ceased him as an objective. Touki Bouki is a movie lingering on everything. Perspective and time end up working beautifully in it because of creative judgment such as this. It’s no coincidence then that the opening scene of cattle being slaughtered continues to haunt the screen even till the end, side by side conjoined with its protagonists’ journey.
The music had me seriously tweakin’ too ngl.
Verdict: B
“Touki Bouki” is now available to stream on The Criterion Channel.
Burning the Celluloid 
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