Popular reviews

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  Review by Lise ★★★★★ 9

  tiff 2014 film #10

  This film struck me like no other at TIFF.

  If you want to know what it is like, really like, when your world gets taken over by regimes or fanatics that haphazardly impose their will over yours, this is the film to see. If you want to know what it is like to be helpless, truly helpless, the way many communities are in the world, this is the film to see. If you want to see the results of fanaticism, not in the big headline-worthy way (although that too) but in the insidious way it manifests itself in your daily life, this is the film to see.

  Director Abderrahmane Sissako takes his time, he takes care…

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  Review by Jonathan White ★★★★ 10

  TIFF 2014 film #10

  Reason for pick: Buzz from Cannes

  Director Abderrahmane Sissako frames his story of the occupation of Timbuktu by Islamic fundamentalist rebels with a perfect first scene. A jeep filled with men carrying machine guns races across the plane chasing a gazelle. Several rounds are fired, and we hear a voice yell out “ no! no! we don’t want to kill him, we just want to wear him out.”

  Aside from this opening shot, the extremists are not painted as banshee screaming gun firing boogymen. No, their quiet insinuation into the lives of the residents of Timbuktu is much more insidious. With Sharia law imposed, hands can be chopped, daughters taken against their and their parents will…

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  Review by Graham 6

  In a year when the world is slowly learning to deal with the impact and ongoing implications of a global pandemic, it's good to take a step back and consider what we have. Timbuktu really got me thinking.

  Imagine a life in which people you didn't know, that had not been elected to power began enforcing their own version of what is 'right' on the population without any consideration for the people themselves. And then, they have the gall to claim they are doing so in the name of some higher power. As an act of faith.

  "I found where the music came from. They're singing praise to the Lord and his prophet. Shall I arrest them?"

  Fundamentalists the world…

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  Review by Joshua Dysart ★★★★½

  When the Malian Salafi jihadists first role into town, the movie seems content to be an almost whimsical depiction of rebellious citizens living under sudden religious fascism. It even labors to show us the put upon humanity of those who “must” enforce this version of Sharia law.

  The fundamentalists come off as an annoyance. The film aches to humanize everyone, both those who take power, dressing it in their pious language, and those who have their individual freedoms taken from them.

  Here conversations about God, religion, and society exist in soft abstractions and philosophical musings and the constant pushback from the citizens of the region is a delight to watch.

  But then a crime is committed. Then a song is…

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  Review by Darren Carver-Balsiger ★★★★½ 2

  Timbuktu is a breathlessly simple statement on Islamic fundamentalism and furthermore reveals the hypocrises and truths of human civilisation. Here extremism is presented in practice and at face value. Pretentious statements and philosophical musings are nowhere to be found. Instead we just get a selection of stories across one small town. It depicts a calm and peaceful life under oppression. At the end of the day, people just want to get by and live their lives, regardless of whether they agree with the power structures of their community. Suffering and ideology are secondary, people just want to survive and thrive. Timbuktu shows us the oppressive nature of fundamentalist Islam, through its arbitrary rules and harsh punishments (lashes for playing football…

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  Review by chavel ★★ 7

  Islamic fundamentalists take over rule and domineer this small village in West Africa, but it’s the thin acting and vague parallel multi-stories that sink this in a rut. Victims face some great terror, but the rather non-structure is so amorphous and beats relayed with such detachment that you don’t feel anything but numb.

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  Review by Chris Hormann ★★★★★

  A film that combines rare lyrical beauty with brutal social realism in such perfect balance. Brilliantly acted and images that imprint themselves in the memory - the gorgeous "football" scene is now one of my favourites in all cinema. I'm breathless and heartbroken.

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  Review by cinemacl🎃wn ★★★½ 7

  Powerful, evocative & thoroughly engrossing, Timbuktu is a riveting portrait of life under the regime of terror that brilliantly illustrates the absurdity of extremist mentality in a sardonic manner while also showcasing the hypocrisy of the Jihadists who themselves are unable to live up to the rules they so blatantly like imposing on the general population.

  Timbuktu covers everyday life in the titular city of Mali which is under the occupation of Islamists & covers the harsh life its residents are forced to live for all leisurely activities are forbidden. The plot centres on a cattle herder & his family who live on the outskirts of the city and are typically free from those terrorists' interference but an unexpected incident abruptly changes their…

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  Review by Ed Gonzalez ★★★★ 4

  Do not miss this great film when it comes to a theater at a major metropolis near you at the end of the month. It has its imperfections, but they pale in significance to its elegiac sense of will. After what happened yesterday in Paris, and especially for those confused about the ties between Islam and terrorism or operating under the mistaken belief that Charlie Hebdo's provocations weren't necessary, the film's searing, lucid depiction of innocents rightfully, righteously fighting fundamentalism from within will grip you in horrified empathy.

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  Review by Michael Sicinski ★★★½

  [7]

  Given just how timely and prescient and absolutely engagé this film is, it feels like snobbish quibbling to point out that Timbuktu is probably the most conventional film Sissako's ever made. (I haven't seen his early documentaries.) This is frustrating on a number of fronts.

  First, on a formal level, you can see Sissako straining throughout Timbuktu to make a "normal" film. Key scenes, such as the discussions between Kidane (Ibrahim Ahmed) and Satima (Toulou Kiki) in their sandy lean-to, are needlessly carved up into shot / counter-shot découpage, presumably to avoid the long takes and master shots that have become a calling card for "difficult" international cinema. And Sissako isn't a particularly skilled director in these conventional terms.…

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  Review by Graham Williamson ★★★★ 2

  "Here come those men again. I don't like them", shrugs a twelve-year-old girl, as two gun-toting members of the Islamist group Ansar Dine approach in a jeep. For a while, despite their heavy armoury, the jihadists in Abderrahmane Sissako's latest film are definitely more Four Lions than United 93, singularly failing to strike terror into the local populace. They wander aimlessly with a megaphone demanding that women wear socks at all times, and botch the making of a propaganda video in a scene that could have come straight out of Chris Morris's film. In one scene, a local fishmonger chews them out for demanding she wears gloves while handling fish. I recognised some of that defiance from Hana Makhmalbaf's documentary…

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  Review by Raul Marques ★★★★½

  I get kind of annoyed whenever I hear Americans saying with all the pride in the world that they live in a free country. Mostly because that expression is commonly used in defense of questionable acts, but also because they say it like freedom was an exclusivity of the US. Fortunately, films like this exist and make me value every bit of liberty and democracy we have, as much as they're flawed.

  The movie itself is superbly directed, the desolate and beautiful scenery is exquisitely explored, tightly edited and features some huge performances. Some sequences are definitely sticking to me for a long time, like the ball-less football and the woman singing while getting punished for it.

  I don't use the word that often, but that's a picture that deserves it: Essential.