Abderrahmane Sissako’s Timbuktu finds humour in the men enforcing jihadist rule without making their violence easier to bear. Its scattered stories occasionally feel too brief, but the attention it gives ordinary people is deeply moving.
Timbuktu is a moving, sometimes funny film about people whose ordinary lives have become subject to armed men’s instructions. Abderrahmane Sissako gives the residents enough attention for each new restriction to feel like an intrusion into a life already being lived. We recommend it warmly, with a reservation about how quickly some of its stories are left behind. It asks us to notice what occupation does to a family, a game or a conversation, without making every person an example in a lecture.
The family gives us somewhere to settle amid the movement through the town. Ibrahim Ahmed dit Pino as Kidane, Toulou Kiki as Satima and Layla Walet Mohamed as Toya make the wish to be left in peace feel sufficient; they do not need exceptional qualities to deserve our concern. Their performances have an ease that makes the armed men’s demands seem all the more alien. The director is good at letting a household matter before asking us to fear for it.
He is also willing to let the occupiers look foolish. The men charged with enforcing their rules cannot quite live by them, and the screenplay by Abderrahmane Sissako and Kessen Tall gives that inconsistency room to become funny. These are recognisable failings, made frightening by the power to punish anyone who objects. Some political dramas make their villains so assured that they accidentally flatter them; here the men with guns do not acquire intelligence merely because other people have to obey.
Sofian El Fani’s wide framing keeps people and their surroundings in view together. The desert has a scale that the occupation cannot alter, and its beauty makes the intrusion of armed men more troubling. Sébastian Birchler’s production design helps the town feel inhabited rather than arranged solely for an account of suffering. We have the sense of lives that were going on before the film began, which makes the occupiers’ efforts to dictate every habit feel both presumptuous and frightening.
The mimed football match moved us more than we expected. The players sustain a shared pretence, and the care they take over a game with no ball makes an ordinary pleasure feel newly precious. The director allows the scene to be amusing without treating the players as a joke. We get to spend time with people who still know how to enjoy one another’s company, despite the restrictions on what they can do together.
Nadia ben Rachid’s editing connects the separate encounters clearly, though the frequent changes of company are also our reservation. A person can interest us just as the film is ready to move on, and a few shorter passages introduce people mainly to show us one more unreasonable rule. Amine Bouhafa’s music supports the sadness without making the characters seem helpless. Even so, we were most persuaded when the film simply stayed with its people and let their behaviour hold our attention.
At 96 minutes, this is a compact film, but it asks for more attention than a straightforward family drama. The changes of focus are worth accepting for the time they give to lives that a narrower story would push aside. We would choose it for an evening when there is time to sit with something difficult. Do not mistake the moments of laughter for a promise that it will go easy.
