Product Details

• Actors: Ami Diakhate, Mansour Diouf, Calgou Fall, Faly Gueye, Mamadou Mahourédia Gueye
• Format: Color, Subtitled, NTSC
• Language: Wolof
• Subtitles: English
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Kino International
• VHS Release Date: October 28, 2003
• Run Time: 113 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6304544049
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #3,233 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Filmmaker We Missed, February 9, 2001

By	Peter Archanjo (Oak Park, IL) - See all my reviews

Hyenas is one of those films one cannot describe, because of the total sensiual experiance that comes out of it. Djibril Diop Mambety is an enigmatic figure in African Cinema. His first film, Touki Bouki, won an award at the Cannnes Film Festival in 1974. It was then almost 20 years until His next feature with a few shorts in between. This adaption of Friedrich Durrenmatt's, The Visit, takes the cold power of this story of spurned love to another level entirely. It becomes a metaphorical tales of materialism and consumerism and the value of human life in general.

It has beautiful music,clever dialogue, ("...what is that you are smoking," Drame Dramen asks, "...if you were to ask it's name, it would say Havana..." replies the mayor of the town of Coloban.

This film examines the revenge of a woman, Ramatou, driven out of town when she becomes pregnant by a married man. The Married Man, Drame Dramen, enlists the aid of two friends who lie and say she slept with her also to bring her character into question.

She is driven from the town in disgrace. Twenty years later she returns a millionaire with the intention of buying justice and revenge with cold cash and consumer goods. Amidst surrealistics imagery of Washers Dryers and air conditioners she woes the villager to make them complict in her exacting that revenge. She wants the head of DFramen Drame...and the villagers may be all too willing to comply and the whispers begin.

It is a timeless tale that seems to exist between now and then, a japanese woman chaffeur breaks out a cell phone in the mdidst of a dusty town on the edge of an eternal then....a crippled prosecutor, the peole of the town are colorful and brilliantly portrayed, the mayors seems a character from an African Oz...this is cinema at it's finest.

I could go on but I would just like to encourage everyone to see this film. I know what I will be giving for gifts this year to close friends.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars already a classic of the African Cinema, September 5, 2001

By	"webdak-com" (Long Island (NY), USA) - See all my reviews

Setting, pace and characters are beautiful developed in this masterpiece of the African Cinema. Diop Mambety used F.Duerrenmatt's original freely, but with a strong own identity and style. An old lady returns to her poor home town, after she became rich. Wondering why, the people start to talk. Slowly the viewer discovers her story. The old lady is aristocratic every moment of the movie, even in non-aristocratic moments...
Highly recommended for everybody, who likes real storytelling cinema.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Wonderful Allegory About Structural Adjustment., November 20, 2001

By	Christopher Spadone (new Orleans, LA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

It's been a while since I saw this film (I've seen it several times), but what most reviewers miss is it's allegorical message. The film isn't about the old woman wanting the man dead, but the symbols behind the actions. The idea of an outsider (or actualy someone whose been made wealthy in Europe) asking people to do things they normally would not bring to mind the economic reforms of structural adjustment. This funny and sad film conveys the sense of afro-pessimism so prevelant today.