Timbuktu

No, we don't have a trope page for this one yet.

Timbuktu is a beautiful, haunting film from Mauritanian film director Abderrahmane Sisako based on the titular Malian city and its occupation by Al Qaeda jihadists in 2012. The main plot is a story of a cattle herder and his family whose are disrupted by a dispute with a fisherman that goes horribly wrong, and the jihadis' cruel imposition into their lives, but there is so much more to the film than that. This really is a story of a traditional town's suffering under the imposition of a thuggish, brutal, gun-toting alien occupation, and the small, everyday, noble yet ultimately tragic acts of resistance that expose the absurdity of the extremists' way of life.

(Singing is forbidden, so they sing songs of praise for God and Muhammad: "should we arrest them?" asks a bewildered jihadi. Gloves and veils are imposed upon the women, but a fish seller in the market demands to know how she can ply her trade while wearing the thick woolen gloves. Football is forbidden—despite the way the jihadis chatter about Real Madrid and Zidane like football fans across the world—so, in what is probably the single most beautifully filmed sequence in a beautifully filmed movie, a group of boys strike up an imaginary football game in a sandlot, with jerseys and cleats and goalposts and everything except the actual ball; the jihadis can only ride by on their pickup trucks in silence as the boys "score" a hard-fought goal and celebrate like they'd just scored in the World Cup. A running gag is that the jihadi we see most often, Adbelkrim, often has to have his commands translated—sometimes two or three times—to be understood by the people living there: though they are all Muslims, the jihadi way of life is utterly alien to them. The one exception is the resident madwoman, a refugee from the Haiti earthquake and the only woman in the city allowed to go with her head uncovered, whose contemptuous dismissal of the jihadis as "assholes!" carries more weight than all their hypocritically pious declarations.)

Mention has to be made of the portrayal of the jihadis. As ethnically diverse as the cast of the film—Mali sits on the ethnic border between the lighter-skinned North African peoples and the darker-skinned West African ones—they are not caricatures but as human as everyone else. In the way they sometimes bum a cigarette behind a dune, or try to flirt with the local women, or struggle through the process of filming a message with a camcorder and a nervous young actor, they are recognizable as everyday people, not monsters, who wreak monstrous crimes on their fellows as they follow their blinkered, absurd extremism. ("You cause harm to Islam and Muslims," a courageous imam says to them as he bars them from entering his mosque with their weapons and their shoes still on. "Where's God in all of this?")

What can make the film somewhat less than accessible is the way that it's told. It relies heavily on mood and tone, stunning cinematography and music, and though it all works beautifully, it's somewhat demanding on the audience to appreciate the slow, allusive way the stories are told. But it is worth every moment.

edited 22nd Feb '15 1:57:25 PM by SabresEdge

It has managed to be the great winner of the Césars (7 of them, including Best Film and Best Director), though, so people can appreciate it, even if it's demanding.

Now, you could say that American audiences are not ready for such a unique movie.

I'll check it out when it comes out on DVD.

edited 22nd Feb '15 2:01:56 PM by Quag15

We have a work page now!

Timbuktu! Free for Amazon Prime subscribers!

edited 14th Jan '17 7:02:36 AM by jamespolk