Mauritanian director Abderrahmane Sissako’s latest, much-acclaimed film engrosses from the beginning, with its shot of what might be a gazelle running across the desert sands. Meanwhile, a band of jihadists attempt to shoot it dead for sport, while travelling in a fast-moving jeep.
‘Tire it, don’t shoot it,’ exhorts one of the armed gang, perhaps outlining in the course of this paradigm the two choices open to these zealots as they attempt to convert the eponymous Malian city. Either be sharp and summary about it, or otherwise tire the local Islamic population out by endless persuasion.
The invaders seem to opt for the latter course of action, walking around the narrow alleys between mud-wall houses preaching prohibition through megaphones to a gentle people who are already deeply religious and in no need of any adjustments to the quality of their faith. Clothing is checked, smoking and laughter is banned, women selling fish are told to wear gloves.
Innocent games of football on the sand are banned, music is strictly forbidden. The commencement of violent action arrives with the lashing of a woman in public for singing within the confines of a private house. Her two companions are buried to their necks in sand and stoned - it would appear to death - although the viewer is spared the horror of watching any more than a few frames of the latter punishment.
Vivid and starkly portrayed as these scenes are, they are not the central story, which focuses on the cattle owner Kidane (Ibrahim Ahmed). Kidane is a peaceful, sensitive man, living in a small settlement of tents on the outskirts of Timbuktu with his wife Satima (Toulou Kiki) and daughter Toya (Layla Walet Mohamet.)
Such is Sissako’s marvellous gift for scene-setting that we are quickly familiarised with the profound love that underpins this family unit, despite the looming threats from the jihadists and the prescriptions of Sharia law.
Neighbours have fled, but the herdsman insists on staying, as flight seems futile. Kaidane has no son, an orphaned boy Issan (Mehdi Ag Mohamed) helps him to look after the herd. The pivotal incident in the story occurs when the cattle are being walked through a river by Issan and a particularly treasured, heavily pregnant cow - known curiously as GPS - is killed.
To relate more would only spoil, but suffice to say that the film -which was nominated for Best Foreign Film at the Oscars - becomes a tense thriller, as the improvised jihadi court presides over yet another baleful session. Beautifully paced, Timbuktu is for much of the time a compelling story of love against the odds.
Timbuktu is released at the IFI and selected cinemas.
Paddy Kehoe
