With Timbuktu, director and co-writer Abderrahmane Sissako has created a film to test our understanding of what words such as “terrorist”, “jihadist” and “Islamic extremists” mean as much as what they don’t mean, offering a glimpse into a world I could never say I understand or even comprehend. Sissako’s level of empathy for his characters is what gives the film its weight, opening your eyes as you just might find your morals tested in ways you couldn’t have expected.
Set during the takeover of the titular Malian city by self-described jihadists in 2012, the film is both horrifying and beautiful, managing to even merge dread with small doses of humor as a group of young people play soccer in a dusty field, but must halt their game so a donkey can pass through. The dread in this instance is far more lasting, coming from the fact they are playing without a ball. Soccer, you see, is forbidden and it makes stopping the game much easier if you don’t have to hide the ball if someone wielding a gun happens to stop by. Other banned activities include the playing of music, smoking cigarettes and merely standing in doorways. Why? Good question.
Sissako grabs hold of our attention immediately as threat meets peace when a local imam (Adel Mahmoud Cherif) confronts a group of intruders as they enter a mosque. “One cannot enter the house of God with shoes and weapons,” he says. One of the men replies, “But we can. We’re doing jihad.” L’Imam’s reply lays out the contradiction of terms, the confusion at the heart of the film, saying, “You’re doing jihad? And you want to do it here? In the house of God? Here, in Timbuktu, he who dedicates himself to religion uses his head and not his weapons.” He asks the men to leave and they do without another word. Cherif’s calm delivery of these words demands that not only the intruders listen, but we as an audience listen, absorbing his words.
The reaction from Abdelkrim (Abel Jafri), the leader of these men, is just as important. His eyes show understanding and almost sorrow for what they’ve done, but at the same time you can tell he’s conflicted as to how to react, not at all expecting the confrontation. Abdelkrim is a contradiction that haunts the entire feature. In another early scene his driver takes him out to the dunes outside the city where Satima (Toulou Kiki) and her daughter (Layla Walet Mohamed) wait for her husband, Kidane (Ibrahim Ahmed), to return. She’s washing her hair as he walks up, his driver interpreting his words into Tamasheq. He greets her, she more or less ignores him, condemning him for always showing up when her husband isn’t around. He tells her to cover her head to which she says he shouldn’t look at what he doesn’t want to see. Again, he leaves, though tells her to call him if she ever needs anything, which comes across more as a foreboding threat than anything else.
Kidane, a cattle herder, and his family have chosen to remain where they are despite the fact their neighbors left long ago and his, and his family’s, story becomes the film’s largest guiding force and Ahmed’s performance is unforgettable. Most of the performances in Timbuktu are through the characters’ eyes, for obvious reasons, and the largely soft spoken nature of the dialogue, and Ahmed’s work in this regard is particularly devastating. His smile is infectious, but in the end, as he speaks proudly yet with solemnity, his eyes well with tears and you can’t help but be moved.
Timbuktu has a gradual momentum, yet a foreboding dread permeates nearly every scene. Sissako slow plays his hand, calculating each move, allowing scenes to play out to the absolute edge, and it’s here where the feature finds its absolute power. There isn’t so much a condemnation of the intruders as they too are portrayed with just as much humanity as those they are oppressing. “Knowing that his daughter will soon be an orphan really upsets me, but don’t translate that,” one man says as he sits in front of a man condemned to death, but what’s even more poetic when it comes to this scene is the man who faces death is by no means innocent, and yet your heart begs for his pardon. Is there any room or possibility for compassion? Is any deserved? The moral complexities are staggering from one scene to the next, some instances far easier to come to terms with than others, but go in expecting to be challenged.
It’s interesting to note a director’s statement from Sissako included in the film’s press notes where he references an online video of a couple, with two children, in Aguelhok, Mali who were buried up to their heads and stoned to death. Their purported crime, they weren’t married. Sissako references this video much in the same way Force Majeure writer/director Ruben Ostlund used YouTube videos to aid the creation of his film, and like Ostlund, Sissako includes a similar scene in his film. Has art come this close to simulating life? Is this why both Ostlund and Sissako’s films are so affecting? It’s interesting to note how Force Majeure is looked at as a black comedy and Timbuktu a heart-wrenching drama, and yet both could easily be described as absurd reality.
Just as much as the performances, writing and direction are to be commended, cinematographer Sofian El Fani (Blue is the Warmest Color) captures some gorgeous imagery. I was specifically moved by two separate shots against the night sky, illuminated by the moon, stunning in their polarity. One features Kidane and his family, him playing music while his wife and daughter gently sway and sing along. The other offers the silhouette of a jihadist, holding his weapon as he listens to a group in town playing music within their home, an act that’s forbidden and won’t go unpunished.
Editor Nadia Ben Rachid also deserves notice, assisting Sissako in weaving together a story that relies entirely on showing just enough, but not too much, and allowing the audience to put the pieces together. For example, the film begins with a group of jihadists playing target practice with local artifacts. It’s an obvious metaphor, but a powerful one at that. It comes just after the same group of men are seen chasing and shooting at a gazelle in the open. “Don’t kill it! Tire it!” one of them shouts. As Timbuktu comes to a close these opening words echo throughout the entire feature and into reality.
