Touki Bouki / Contras' City

A feature and a short from Djibril Diop Mambety
Touki Bouki, 1973: There is a variety of different techniques used here, all skillfully, giving this film a wonderful, slow, spaced out atmosphere. We have long shots, staying on landscapes. The director is not scared, to an almost Tati-esque degree, to use every aspect of the frame. Set ups let the top corner, the side, every part, become active at one point or another. Even though their is a leisurely pace, with (at most) one thing at a time, we still then have a sense of a kind of teeming arena. There is also some handheld work, and things 'thrown', close to the camera. Low angles are used for some iconic framing, but a high angle is probably used most often here, with a scene not quite centered (sometimes even canted) playing out. Yet this rarely feels overly ostentatious; nothing is too overdone, and the slow pace, long takes and little story, let it all flow...
The editing in this film is terrific. We have very much a circular structure to the narrative, with certains scenes even repeated at one point near the start. Many shots have nothing to do with the main story, we pick up one person for a moment, take on their little moment in the sun (while the policeman walks past), before move back, with a few directions, to some shots of our leads walking about.
The sound/ image disjunction is an important part of this, with interior monlogue from perhaps anywhere, and a general kind of running commentary.
One can be unsure which parts are the dream, which parts are real, in this certainly absurdist, verging on surrelist, piece. Yet each of the images is invoked with a concrete significance; the blood and the madwoman are not only extreme, they invoke a kind of ancient pull on the characters, a lack of escape. This film shares a lot with 'Breathless' certainly, perhaps also 'Easy Rider', in its slightly wasted leads, messing around, dreaming silly dreams, never escaping. That every person they meet, anyone with any kind of power at least, is sinister, self-interested, grasping, also lends a certain paranoid atmosphere redolent of 'Paris Nous Appartient'; like that film, it is not overdone.
Repetition and digression is used, staying on some people dancing for quite a long time, having a look at the beach, the constant use of some great music. If a film can be said to summon a 'mood', even a 'time', this does it. Very good.
Contras' City, 1969: I'm pretty sure no one in this film gave permission to appear; and all the better. This reminds one of Marker, or perhaps vice versa. It is really like a friend showing you around. The narrator talks to his friend, makes a few jokes, explains a few things, and just shows us around, usually with long takes, focussing in otherwise. Nothing is kept too long, because a point is being made. This is because we have the best kind of guide; for all the showing done, what it comes down to is that we are not being guided, but just given the opportunity to have a look.