Timbuktu (2014) (Bambara, Arabic & French Language)

Review

97min

Genre:    Drama

Director: Abderrahmane Sissako

Cast:      Ibrahim Ahmed, Abel Jafri, Toulou Kiki…and more

Writers : Abderrahmane Sissako & Kessen Tall

On the West-African sands and plains of Mali, a small family of cattle-herders and an entire town struggle to cope with the Islamic fundamentalists that have brought so-called “Jihad” to their doorstep, as they come to terms with the oppressive regime that has taken over their once tranquil lives, they will also have to deal with the accompanying Sharia “justice” in this bold and harrowing tale of religious intolerance from writer/director Abderrahmane Sissako.

Set in the outskirts of Timbuktu but filmed in the stunningly captured deserts of Mauritania, Sissako delivers a tragically contemporary tale that will no doubt be timely for decades to come, a tale about daily struggles in one of the poorer parts of the world that takes on a new extreme religious dimension, but unlike anything we’ve seen it features a clash of “East Vs. East” and more specifically the traditional Muslim faith confronted by the new more radicalized and controlling Islam using their interpretation of “Jihad” as a sword.

 The heart of the film is the main family dynamic torn apart by oppressive fanatics, as are all the other observant but moderate Muslim families we see, but the soul of ‘Timbuktu’ is best represented by the dialogue involving the local Imam questioning one of the foreign invading “Jihadist’s” piety and if he truly thinks God & their faith are being served by punishing devout Muslims whose only crimes are playing music and refusing to make women wear gloves and socks.

 The pace of the film may not be to everyone’s liking, it’s slow and deliberate, and if you expect to see a Westernized graphic representation of “Terrorism” then expect to be disappointed, ‘Timbuktu’ dares to represent “Jihadists” as more than fanatical terrorist instead depicting them as human, flawed and even naive.

 The Bottom Line…

Bold, timely, narrowly focused but with potentially global scope, ‘Timbuktu’ is a little gem of a foreign film that you’ll rather disturbingly connect to wherever you’re from and won’t regret catching if you give it a chance.

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Similar films you may like (Home Video)

Moolaadé (2004)

In Burkina Faso a woman shelters a group of girls from suffering female genital mutilation starting a conflict that tears her village apart in this bold drama about changing the status quo and standing up for oneself.

Directed by Ousmane Sembene and starring Fatoumata Coulibaly, Maimouna Hélène Diarra and Salimata Traoré among others.

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