At NYFF Women Face Down Jihadists in Abderrahmane Sissako’s Timbuktu

From the moment you watch the opening stunning shot of a gazelle running across the desert landscape in total silence you know you are in the hands of a master filmmaker. The gazelle is chased by men in a Land Rover who are not out to kill the animal as much as to torture it. These same men will later walk the streets stalking the residents of Timbuktu. On and on their messages drone through megaphones forbidding all music, sports, and social life. Women are ordered to cover their heads, their bodies, their hands and their feet.

Set in the early days of a jihadist takeover of Mali in 2012, Abderrahamane Sissako’s film Timbuktu indicts the Islamic fundamentalist dogma that drives these men. In his eyes, this dogma is meant to eliminate cultural diversity and strip women of their rights. For this viewer, their new rules are designed to remove freedom.

Sissako develops his story with snapshots of different residents of Timbuktu. Each character is from a different ethnic group and speaks a separate language. Once, this diverse population lived in relative peace side by side in this community. Now, everyone’s life is upended by the invading jihadists. Central to the film is Kidane (Ibrahim Ahmed), and his wife Satima (Toulou Kiki) and their daughter Toya (Layla Walet Mohamed). They are Turareg nomads living a quiet life inside an open tent in the desert. Kidane owns eight cows watched over by a young boy Issan. When his favorite cow, GPS, runs out of control into a local fisherman’s nets, the outraged fisherman kills the cow. Kidane accidently shoots the fisherman and his fate is placed in the hands of the fundamentalists who now act as self-appointed judges in the community.

Elsewhere in the film, a group of young people are caught in the act of making music by snooping jihadi. They are arrested and tried for playing music in the privacy of their home. A young singer (Fatoumata Diawara) is sentenced to eighty lashes. As she cries in pain with each strike of the whip she continues to sing. Hers is an act of defiance and great dignity reminding you of Patsey’s senseless beating in 12 Years a Slave.

A fish monger in the market is told that she must now wear gloves. She responds with anger grabbing a knife and thrusting out her hands for her tormentor to cut off. “How can she sell her fish with gloves?” she asks. “You are taking away my livelihood,” she screams. “You might as well kill me.”

The women in the film are depicted as strong, self-possessed and resistant to the demands of their captors. In a press screening following the film, Sissako said that he was not romanticizing women but, in fact, it was the women of Timbuktu who recognized the moral bankruptcy of the jihadi and were not intimidated. The hypocrisy of the fundamentalists is best drawn in the character Abdelkrim (Abel Jafri) who not only smokes secretly behind a tree but openly pursues Satima the wife of Kidane. Satima, who refuses to wear a veil, rejects Abdelkrim’s visits. Later we see a couple stoned to death for adultery. “We are the guardians of all deeds,” says one jihadist to the imam.

Timbuktu is a powerful but subtle and elegant film. Sissako says he is not an activist but his film will have a great impact on viewers. In this beautifully drawn work he warns us that a small group of religious fanatics who cannot even live by their own rules are capable of generating a great deal of harm. He wants you to pay attention.

About the Author: Barbara Castro is a Family Mediator and is currently working on a film project to introduce divorcing families to the benefits of mediation rather than litigation. She reviews films at the New York Film Festival and the Tribeca Film Festival for The WIP.