Timbuktu

 Timbuktu 2014

• Director: Abderrahmane Sissako
• Based on the book: no
• Cast: Ibrahim Ahmed, Abel Jafri, Toulou Kiki, Layla Walet Mohamed, Kettley Noël
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Abel Jafri – Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
• Why? It sounded good
• Seen: 10 October 2021.      

       The desert town of Timbuktu has been taken over by extreme Jihadists who forbid one thing after another.

       We see glimpses of the lives of the victims and of the Jihadists. The drama is slow and low-key, but dramatic, nevertheless. Visually beautiful, the film is a grim work of art.

       Unfortunately, it falls apart on the weak story and it’s clichéd ‘good religion is good and bad religion is bad.’ I say as Lucretius did over two thousand years ago: ‘Tantum religio potuit suadere malrum.’ Only religion can lead to such evil.

       The film got all kinds of prizes, but I don’t like it. 

2 ½ * of 5