Hyenas

In Hyenas, Djibril Diop Mambéty adapted a timeless parable about human greed into a biting satire about how Africa has betrayed the hopes of independence for the false promises of Western materialism, brilliantly combining two seemingly unrelated stories. Years ago, in Dakar’s port district, a mysterious prostitute, Linguère Ramatou, appeared for a few years and, just as suddenly, disappeared. Mambéty imagined a history for this enigmatic figure as a beautiful young woman abandoned by her lover for a wealthier wife and driven away by the small-minded villagers of Colobane when they discover she is pregnant. Mambéty imagined an ending for the story when he saw Ingrid Bergman in Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s play The Visit. Now an old woman, “as rich as the World Bank,” Linguère returns to her village and bribes the avaricious inhabitants to kill her former lover. Mambéty’s satire reveals the implacable logic of the marketplace—the reign of the hyena.