Underseen on Netflix is the Senegalese series Sakho & Mangane, a stylish crime procedural with a supernatural twist. Its creator, Jean Luc Herbulot, again displays a talent for effortlessly shifting through genres with Saloum, a contemporary genre-bender infused with ancestral folklore. The setting and its history add to Herbulot’s stylish story, which helps when the dense and sometimes inaccessible backstories make it difficult to find footing.
Opening amidst Guinea-Bissau’s coup d’état of 2003, a trio of skilled mercenaries, the Bangui Hyenas, sneak in and extract a drug dealer and his stash and quietly make their escape for Dakar, Senegal. But unexpected issues along the way mean they get stranded in the coastal river region of the Sine-Saloum Delta and seek shelter from a reclusive holiday resort. The Hyenas and their bounty attempt to blend in with the tourists, but hidden secrets and the arrival of two new guests threaten to blow the Hyenas’ cover and awaken violence within the land.
Writer-Director Herbulot toys with the concept of a hero. Chaka (Yann Gael), Rafa (Roger Sallah), and Minuit (Mentor Ba) are mercenaries, and they’re more ruthless than usual when it comes to seeing their latest assignment through to completion; they intend to retire. That determination means some unheroic acts, but a deep well of camaraderie developed among the trio over years of fighting in the trenches. They read more as antiheroes, very cool antiheroes. But for deaf-mute Awa (Evelyne Ily Juhen), their preceding reputation marks them a hero. For her, they dangle the possibility of safety or an escape route to something better.
Because we’re meeting the Hyenas’ at the end of their story, there’s a rich history among them that goes unspoken. On the one hand, the camaraderie of fighting together in the trenches for so long is apparent and instantly winsome. They’re not colleagues but brothers. On the other hand, it’s hard to find footing in the shorthand they have between them and find an entry point into this world. It’s clear that there’s a dense culture and mythology, but Herbulot is juggling many threads at once, and it can be dizzying to follow and unpack.
So much of what Herbulot teases but rarely explains is the mysticism that saturates the land and its culture. The Hyenas know how to wield a weapon and stealthily take out targets, but Minuit also happens to be a profoundly spiritual sorcerer with a penchant for magic gris-gris. It makes him an asset for the team, especially for the aquatic-averse teammate that must cross a river, but and it’s an underserved facet that leaves you longing to know more. These types of worldbuilding details fall to the peripheral to spotlight the folklore that directly affects the plot the most.
Herbulot ambitiously attempts to tackle so many themes and ideas at once; cultural history, trauma, and folklore all rear their ugly heads in a constantly shifting feature grounded by a core group of ultra-cool leads. Spirituality, morality, mythology, and mysticism get thrown into a gritty crime thriller blender, culminating in a refreshingly different type of genre-bender that makes for a wildly unpredictable ride. Even the characters defy expectations and test your allegiances. It’s not the most accessible narrative to navigate, but it’s such a unique and audacious vision packed with mythos and characters that begs for more stories from this region.
