‘Timbuktu’ film directed by Abderrahmane Sissako 2015
As this film starts with background music it is clear it can't be on the side of the reactionary Muslim
faction that are shown taking over the town. Other Muslims, who have been living there are shown
as they attempt to carry on despite various rules being imposed. Inventively they mime a game of
football because the real game is forbidden.
People playing musical instruments quietly inside their own homes and singing are tracked down
by armed guards who break into their houses and arrest them. A woman subjected to 40 lashes
with the community helplessly watching starts to sing in protest.Two adulterers are stoned to death.
One of the invading men demands to be married and is found a wife, who is non consenting and
crying. They justify this with reference to the Koran. A man and woman run towards one another
and both are shot dead.
At the beginning of the film a deer is seen running through the sparse dry brown landscape and
this image is repeated towards the end, nature's life going on despite the drastic changes in the
community.
The film goes at a leisurely pace, the beauty of everything contrasting painfully with the pleasure
destroying rules of a new regime.
The images linger in my mind and I feel a humane empathy with the people whose lives are
disrupted by men with guns who arrive abruptly and claim religious justification for their behaviour.
An eloquent, poetic protest
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