Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
Just outside of the Malian city of Timbuktu, now occupied by militant Islamic rebels who impose the Sharia on civilians and inconvenience their daily life, a cattleman kills a fisherman.
Timbuktu is a remarkably distinctive film — Abderrahmane Sissako's portrayal of jihadist occupation in Mali is rendered with quiet, poetic observation rather than conventional war-drama mechanics. The cinematography by Sofian El Fani is genuinely stunning, capturing the arid Saharan landscape with painterly compositions that give the absurdity and tragedy of religious extremism an almost mythic weight. The film's novelty is high: its episodic, elliptical structure, its blend of dark irony (the militants fumbling with cigarettes offscreen, the mimed football match) and genuine pathos is unlike most films tackling Islamist occupation. The acting from largely non-professional or regional performers is naturalistic and dignified. The plot, however, is relatively slender — it functions more as a mosaic of vignettes than a propulsive narrative, which limits its dramatic impact. The ending, while emotionally resonant, follows inevitably from the setup without surprising depth.