Timbuktu 2014

IFFK 2014 opened with Dancing Arabs.I kept wondering why that movie was chosen for a prestigious opening session. It narrated and tried to convey the pain relating to the burial of Arab identity. But the movie had no resistance. The protagonist was voluntarily burying it first for love and then for a living. Nobody was forcing him and nothing in the movie gives a fair explanation. Middle East rhetoric of Arab existence is repeatedly seen and the sympathetic portrayals of Arab youth have become a cliché.

But Timbuktu offered me a better frame. Abderrahmane Sissako leads me to Timbuktu, a land that was founded in 1100 by Tuareg nomads as a seasonal trading post and camp for gold, salt, ivory, kola nuts and slaves. In the 15th and 16th centuries this land became an intellectual and spiritual capital of Islam. But in the movie,you see the land gets infected by the Jihadies and the fast transition and fall of Islam to paganism. Sissako unwinds the narrative with slow and steady pace. It becomes obvious after the 10 minutes that, his intentions are not to make a story. He unconventionally draws up attention to the strange and silly ways of newly arrived foreign Jihadies who play with latest mobiles, cameras and guns. Sissako uses a donkey in some of the scenes to manifest their foolery. But even the donkey is not enough to show the gravity of their mix-ups. They want the women to cover their hair, men to roll up their pants and ban music and football. Still we see them discussing football.

Kidane,a cattle farmer, his wife, Satima and his twelve year old daughter slowly acquires prominence. Earlier in the movie, his wife boldly asks the Jihadi to look away, if he does not want to see her hair. Kidane plays his guitar and their tent amidst the desert becomes a heaven under the starry sky. The innocence and the beauty of life come alive and Sissako brilliantly takes us to the conflict almost immediately. Kidane’s cow GPS stumbles in to the fishing nets of Amadou,a temperamental fisherman and the latter spears it to death Kidane’s confrontations of Amadou ends in a gunshot.We understand that, one of them is shot. But who?.  Sissako does not cut the scenes for a minute. We knew Kidane had the gun. Then the camera opens a wide screen extravaganza in the back ground of the setting sun. Kidane gets up and runs to one side of the screen while Amadou gets up and stumbles down.

Sissako seduces you with his narrative norms. He is sharp and never fails to shock you.He keeps you engaged and forces you to fall in love with his frames. Be it the execution scenes of Sharia Court or the foot ball without a foot ball,he lets the frames capture the essence and advance his intentions to further the cinematic experience. Those faces that are stoned shock you to hell.The last dialogues of Kidane moves you.Fire in Satima’s  eyes leaves you with questions.In the end, you also want to run away from this Godless world like that little girl. You run like that deer.

Timbuktu is shocking. But breathtakingly real. It leaves you with obvious questions on religion and the way it is interpreted by the donkeys.