MIFF NOTES: Timbuktu (2104, Dir. Abderrahmane Sissako)

After the misguided religious-extremist-gender-fuck comedy of Jacky in the Kingdom of Women, the defiant but sombre absurdism of Abderrahmane Sissako's take on similar material was more than just a breath of fresh air. Timbuktu is an intelligent, considered representation of the small scale jihad that took place in Mali's north a couple of years back.

Timbuktu deals little with details of the real life conflict. Instead, Sissako uses his film to cradle the delicacy of desert life its simple pleasures, its music, its morals, and to shield them from the boots and guns and stones of extremism. With both visual and spiritual eloquence, Sissako draws a line in the sand, separating faith and dogma. The constant clashes between the two give way to a series of beautifully captured, artistically driven rebellions. The battlefront is marked with veils, with gloves, with thought and with song.

The simplicity of the city's commonplace defiance lends Timbuktu its lyrical power and adds a mocking comedy to the invaders' misguided jihad. The fact that the film's heavy booted islamists want to crush the most human of the community's pleasures serves to pinpoint, often poetically, the ridiculousness of their cause. Unfortunately (though effectively) it also heightens the severity of the violence Sissako puts on screen.

★★★★

Disclaimer: Due to excessive work and excessive film going, MIFF posts are going to be pretty sketchy this year. I'll come back to some of the better ones and write them up proper-like if the mood takes.