Raetsonwe Redundant and unnecessary.

Fluentiama Perfect cast and a good story

Pluskylang Great Film overall

Ariella Broughton It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

filmalamosa Les Hyenes...the hyenas interested me because it takes place in Senegal. I like foreign movies because it is a way of travelling. But what a Senegal! The movie is laden with dystonic visual symbolism that resembles that 1920s version of the Bride of Frankenstein (I bet I am close believe it or not). In any case it is out of place in a poor 3rd world country..it looks like you are mocking them.The result makes them look like they all wear flour sack clothes and live in absolute destitution. I doubt any of the cast truly understood the deep symbolism of having gold colored shoes made in Upper Volta? The deep symbolism is of course that they are slowly being corrupted into killing a man for money. Wow! What an idea lets use gold to show greed and sagging dirty French flags to symbolize?? The evil of colonialism? Beats me-- Senegal gained it's independence from France in 1960. This movie is supposed to take place in the 1980s. Must be a leftist stab at colonialism.Oh the story.... a woman seeks revenge for having been dumped in her youth and forced into prostitution because she got pregnant and her lover wanted to marry someone richer. A Danielle Steele novel line. She some how becomes richer than the World Bank (an institution on the tongues of every peasant in Senegal). This prostitute acquires hundreds of millions of dollars (how? in a country like Senegal?) As mentioned earlier the movie is laden with too much visual symbolism...everyone starts wearing gold colored things (get it?) and their hair starts to look like a hangman's rope etc... It is the kind of downer visual symbolism that creates unease and a desire to get out of where ever it is as quickly as you can.Poor Senegal if these are the only images people associate with it.I gave it 2 stars because frankly some of the visuals are unforgettable including a Citroen deux chevaux convertible (it is not a Peugeot as another writer says).

shrithe I don't understand the glowing reviews for this movie. I suspect the previous reviewers don't actually know Durrenmat's actual work. What makes Den Besuch Der Alten Dame, the original play, work is it's humorous qualities. Durrenmatt believed that true tragedy no longer resonated properly with audiences, so he created a black comedy of epic proportions. It's grim, certainly, but it's also absurd and with a few characters who are over the top just the right amount. In Hyenas, all humor is gone. This movie attempts to be pure tragedy and, as Durrenmatt believed such an attempt would, it fails.The movie does have it's virtues. The actress playing Ramatou is wonderfully stoic, and it suits the character. Setting it in rural Africa was a brilliant idea as well. The movie as a whole though is dry, slow paced, and often times grating (the two castrated characters are the comic relief in the play, and in the movie they've been turned into whimpering, horrible things, for example).It's too bad. The American adaptation from the 60s stays truer to the play than this movie does, not in the details, but in spirit and tone. See that one instead. For that matter, it also has a major symbolic motif from the play that's entirely lacking here. When the American film version of a European play is better than a french version of the same play, something has gone terribly wrong. I give this movie a three, for the few things it did get right.

larrysmile1 Hyenes is a foreign film from Senegal adapted from a play, The Visit, by Swiss playwright Friedrich Dirrenmatt. It is spoken in the local language with English subtitles.This film is surreal. It makes political statements and explains how a poor, failing village becomes prosperous by the greed of it's residents and the revenge of one of it's former community members.Linguere Ramatou, played by Ami Diakhate, was once a young women who left her home village under less than honorable terms and has now become wealthy. She returns to her village to bestow a large sum of money so that the poor village can become a prosperous city. However, she seeks revenge upon her once seducer Dramaan, played by Mansour Diouf.Dramaan had abandoned Ramatou when they were young forcing her to go to the city to engage in "the oldest profession." Now, Dramaan is an elder grocer granting good on credit to the unemployed villagers whom come to his store much to the displeasure of his wife and co-store keeper.The villagers, learning that Ramatou is returning after many years to bestow money upon the village, appoints Dramaan the local mayor and instructs him to once again "woo" Ramatou so that she will make a large contribution to the village of Colobane.What happens next is a surreal tale of how Dramaan fawns over his once love and her reactions to this lover from long ago.The simple actions of Dramaan are often funny as well as the actions of the village's local officials. Ramatou is willing to provide the large endowment to the village on one condition. You need to see the movie to know that condition and how a "soul" is traded for the donation.The village customs are interesting for Westerners whom may have little or no knowledge of some African customs. It is a little difficult to follow the fast movie English subtitles while listening to the dialogue in Senegalese. The film may need to be viewed more than once for the Westerner to fully comprehend the story and motivations of the principal players.

meninas A stunning adaptation of Friedrich Durrenmatt's coldly brilliant play, The Visit, HYENES (hyenas) actually improves on the story by transposing the action to a Senegalese village. A fabulously wealthy old woman, who was born in the village but run out in disgrace as pregnant youth, returns and promises the villagers a fortune on one condition: that they kill the man who ruined her, an aged man who is the town's popular, good-natured grocer.By moving the story from Durrenmatt's European setting to a dirt-poor African village, all the tensions are heightened, and the director Mambety sets the huge issues in high relief against the desert backdrop: justice, betrayal, revenge, guilt, greed (or need?), loyalty, and charity are played out in a searing (and searingly beautiful) desert, filmed with the grace of Bergman and written with the wryness of Bunuel. There are no good guys. It's up to you if there are bad guys. Everyone is a predator.