Timbuktu

In Timbuktu’s opening sequence, a line of ancient African figurines and masks torn apart by jihadi bullets lie in the sand like so many mutilated bodies, a foreshadowing of killings to come. But writer-director Abderrahmane Sissako, who grew up in Mali and Mauritania, is less interested in the terrible violence jihadists have inflicted on his people than in the many smaller humiliations and restrictions the jihadists impose and the heroic acts of defiance that often greet them. 

As he did in Bamako, Sissako illustrates the damage done by a ruthless institution (in this case, fundamentalists bent on establishing a new caliphate) by focusing on its effect on one formerly happy family. Professional and non-professional actors alike—including singer Fatoumata Diawara, whose improvised song of mourning provides the film with one of its most terrible and beautiful scenes—contribute to the film’s realism by inhabiting their characters with unself-conscious ease. At the same time, Sissako ramps up the underlying sense of dread. Unfolding his story of occupation, resistance, and collateral damage at a stately yet relentless pace, and often either cutting just before a moment of high drama or filming it from a distance, he maintains a powerful thrum of tragic inevitability while avoiding any hint of propagandistic exploitation. Written for Slant Magazine