Timbuktu

Visually dazzling and morally devastating.

The movie's Islamists aren't true believers but a bunch of thugs. A madwoman who dismisses them with a blunt word has much greater moral authority.

Timbuktu is an act of resistance and revenge because it asserts the power of secularism not as an ideology but rather as a stubborn fact of life.

Sissako, a Muslim, frames his story as a cry against religious intolerance. One of the characters, speaking of jihadism, says, “Where is piety? Where is God in all this?” It is the central question of this movie – and of much more now than this movie.

In essence, Timbuktu is about how farce turns into terror.

This is in no way the remorselessly grim film its subject matter might lead you to expect – it’s full of life, irony, poetry and bitter unfairness. It demands respect, but it also earns it.

Timbuktu is hard to grasp, as befits the sand-blown setting and the mythical status of the name. The more you try to define the movie, the faster it sifts away.

A stirring and incredibly timely film, Timbuktu may be a bit too slow for many moviegoers, but if you can dig it, you will find one of the best films of 2014. Brilliantly written and incredibly emotional, Timbuktu is incredibly well-directed and its heartbreaking story will resonate with everybody, no matter your stance on the Middle East and the issues surrounding it. By all measures, Timbuktu is an astonishing achievement from director Abderrahmane Sissako that does a great job of putting a face to the people of these oft-forgotten nations. As it often brought up in the film, you must realize these are people with children, just like people here. These kids are the center of their worlds and though their surroundings can be crazy at times, the people there are truly victims of the situation and deserve to be seen as such. Overall, Timbuktu is an impeccable well-made film that also really stirs you up emotionally and the end result is a fantastic piece of cinema.

A powerful, insightful look at what happens when dogmatic fundamentalism is allowed to hold sway over a devout, peace-loving people looking to live their lives in everyday ways. This very deserving Oscar nominee for best foreign language film exposes a cynical, hypocritical, bullying power structure for what it really is -- and why it desperately needs to be removed from control. This isn't the easiest picture to watch at times, but it makes its statement in an undeniably clear way, one that, one would hope, inspires reformers to step to the forefront to bring about much-needed change.

This is a slow moving film, one that gives you a good insight into the lives of regular people in the area. Its a relatively thoughtful film although the lack of plot direction felt a bit frustrating. Its by no means full of strong, bloody violence, which may come as a relief to some. I thought it seemed like a 'fly in the wall documentary' style of film. In terms of portraying a specific culture, it was interesting. While it isn't especially graphic in terms of violence, there are certainly bleak moments too. I'd say this is an interesting, thoughtful docu-drama overall.

When religious fundamentalists occupy a village in West Africa, they impose their beliefs and bans on the citizens. This leads to oppression and resistance. One man lives peacefully with his wife and child in a remote tent until an accident brings the occupants' laws to their reality. Not only does this film reveal the irrational tyranny and tragedy brought by the Jihadists, it provides glimpses into the small town life in this part of the world. The story isn't structured in a traditional sense, but is rich with cultural observations. The pace is leisurely, the emotion is underplayed and the narrative takes a back seat to the way of life, but it's still a interesting examination. In subtitles.

To me the visual of the film is extremely insipid, savorless, amazingly dull and plainly disappointing! And in that area, someone will have to explain to me how cinematographer Sofian El Fani, who once again reveals himself as an amateur, actually did get a credit for this movie. Very rarely do we see technical challenges. The movie's visualization is so technically repetitive and mind-numbing that it makes the whole movie extremely boring (how many viewers did say they were checking their watch!). Timbuktu's stunning sandy deserts, lakes and caved houses, which should have been splendidly rendered, are regrettably reduced to being consistently filmed with the same elementary shots over and over. It could have been merely OK for a documentary (which the movie was supposed to be BTW). What makes the filming approach so tedious is that Sofian El Fani fails to convey emotions through camera angles (kind of reminded me of La vie d'Adèle where El Fani makes such an excessive use of close-ups that it becomes unbearably repetitive to the viewer). So unless there was a political move to credit Tunisian film crew members, such as El Fani, (Original Score award to Amine Bouhafa was well deserved though), there is no technical basis whatsoever for him receiving this award for best cinematography. Globally, this film probably moved Western World viewers -- that's why it actually got credited--, but it no manner does it contribute to cinema or art.