Timbuktu (2014)
Country: MAU/FR/QAT
Technical: col/2.35:1 96m
Director: Abderrahmane Sissako
Cast: Ibrahim Ahmed, Abel Jafri, Toulou Kiki, Layla Walet Mohamed
Synopsis:
Jihadis have come to a Malian town and start to impose absurd restrictions on daily life: no smoking, no music, no standing in the street. Only the imam at the mosque stands up to them and articulates what is just, but he has no power and they do what they want. A humble cowherd and his family become caught up in a chain of events that leads to bloodshed and Sharia justice.
Review:
This astonishing film, made in neighbouring Mauritania while Ansar Dine were still advancing in Mali, surprises us because it treads so softly (at first). The jihadists have human faces, the locals openly object, even oppose them. There is humour, as a football match is conducted without a ball (forbidden). Then we start to discern the sly manoeuvrings of one of them around the hero's wife, the lashings and other applications of so-called justice. As the film ends, it comes full circle as a fawn is run to ground, just as it was at the start, but this time it is a twelve year-old girl. Cinematography and music are applied formally, underlining the epic resonances.
Country: MAU/FR/QAT
Technical: col/2.35:1 96m
Director: Abderrahmane Sissako
Cast: Ibrahim Ahmed, Abel Jafri, Toulou Kiki, Layla Walet Mohamed
Synopsis:
Jihadis have come to a Malian town and start to impose absurd restrictions on daily life: no smoking, no music, no standing in the street. Only the imam at the mosque stands up to them and articulates what is just, but he has no power and they do what they want. A humble cowherd and his family become caught up in a chain of events that leads to bloodshed and Sharia justice.
Review:
This astonishing film, made in neighbouring Mauritania while Ansar Dine were still advancing in Mali, surprises us because it treads so softly (at first). The jihadists have human faces, the locals openly object, even oppose them. There is humour, as a football match is conducted without a ball (forbidden). Then we start to discern the sly manoeuvrings of one of them around the hero's wife, the lashings and other applications of so-called justice. As the film ends, it comes full circle as a fawn is run to ground, just as it was at the start, but this time it is a twelve year-old girl. Cinematography and music are applied formally, underlining the epic resonances.
Country: MAU/FR/QAT
Technical: col/2.35:1 96m
Director: Abderrahmane Sissako
Cast: Ibrahim Ahmed, Abel Jafri, Toulou Kiki, Layla Walet Mohamed
Synopsis:
Jihadis have come to a Malian town and start to impose absurd restrictions on daily life: no smoking, no music, no standing in the street. Only the imam at the mosque stands up to them and articulates what is just, but he has no power and they do what they want. A humble cowherd and his family become caught up in a chain of events that leads to bloodshed and Sharia justice.
Review:
This astonishing film, made in neighbouring Mauritania while Ansar Dine were still advancing in Mali, surprises us because it treads so softly (at first). The jihadists have human faces, the locals openly object, even oppose them. There is humour, as a football match is conducted without a ball (forbidden). Then we start to discern the sly manoeuvrings of one of them around the hero's wife, the lashings and other applications of so-called justice. As the film ends, it comes full circle as a fawn is run to ground, just as it was at the start, but this time it is a twelve year-old girl. Cinematography and music are applied formally, underlining the epic resonances.