Hyenas (DVD)

Awash in the hypnotic colors and intoxicating sounds of West Africa, Hyenas is a wicked comedy by director Djibril Diop Mambéty (Touki Bouki), depicting the devastating effects of greed on a small, poverty-stricken village.

Dramaan Drameh (Mansour Diof) is a respected, convivial shopkeeper in the tiny village of Colobane. But a forgotten act of cruelty committed thirty years in his past comes back to haunt him when the young girl he impregnated and abandoned returns seeking revenge. Now a weary, calculating millioniress, Linguère Ramatou (Ami Diakhate) offers the citizens of Colobane her riches in exchange for just one thing: the life of the man who betrayed her. Dramaan's neighbors at first scoff at Linguère's gruesome offer but -- dazzled by the televisions, cigarettes, and refrigerators Linguère's money can buy -- they begin to reconsider their allegiance to Colobane's once beloved merchant...and the "reign of the hyenas" begins.

A shrewd glimpse of human nature at its darkest, Hyenas has been celebrated by audiences around the world as a witty, acidic satire of consumer culture and its corruption of modern Africa. It was ingeniously adapted by Mambéty from Swiss writer Friedrich Durrenmatt's play The Visit.