It is really a film about an occupation of a town– that’s Sissako’s message. In a way it isn’t much different from Shane or Rio Bravo (or say German films made during the occupation like The Seventh Cross I saw just a few weeks ago or even Casablanca). There is good and evil in this film as clearly as white hats and black hats in westerns (here they open with these evil men in trucks chasing down and shooting at poor animals)
The local people are arrested for peacefully playing music, there is a new language barrier, soccer is banned (a very touching scene of a group of young boys playing soccer with an invisible ball), a man on a megaphone lecturing about women wearing socks
The greatest scene by far is a long shot by Sissako at dust after the killing of a fisherman—a stunning landscape painting.
A strong distressing message- 95 minutes
There are multiple storylines but the main one involves Ibrahim Ahmed as Kidane—
[…] Timbuktu – Sissako […]