Timbuktu (2014)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Timbuktu |
| Original title | Timbuktu |
| Country of production | Mauritania , France |
| original language | Arabic , Bambara , the Tuareg dialect Tamascheq , Songhai , French , English |
| Publishing year | 2014 |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Abderrahmane Sissako |
| script | Abderrahmane Sissako Kessen Tall |
| production | Sylvie Pialat Etienne Comar |
| music | Amin Bouhafa |
| camera | Sofian El Fani |
| cut | Nadia Ben Rachid |
| occupation | |
| |
Timbuktu is a French - Mauritanian fictional film set in and near Timbuktu in Mali . Abderrahmane Sissako directed the film . The film shows the occupation of Timbuktu by jihadists of Al Qaeda ready or almost ready group Ansar Dine as part of the conflict in northern Mali since 2012 and competed at the International Film Festival of Cannes in competition for the Palme d'Or .
action
Armed men of the Ansar Dine group chase a gazelle through the sandy desert in a jeep. Then they shoot carved wooden sculptures in the style of the Bambara , which u. a. to represent bare-breasted women. The jihadists come to Timbuktu, a city characterized by tolerant Islam , and make the people there rules about their clothes. The length of the pant legs is criticized, women are obliged to wear burqas , gloves and stockings in public, and suddenly they continue to forbid television, radio, football, alcohol, music and standing around. The strangers enter the local mosque armed and with shoes on, the imam sends them away after he has diplomatically criticized its rules and their armed enforcement.
Outside of Timbuktu, a family lives in a nomad tent , consisting of the father Kidane, the mother Satima, who does not wear a veil, the daughter Toya and the adopted son Issan. The family lives from cattle breeding, they have eight cattle and also goats. The most beautiful cow is pregnant and is called GPS. Kidane wants to give the calf Issan, who grazes and waters the cows by the river. The fisherman Amadou laid his nets there. Then a water seller can be seen transporting water in canisters from the river to the families in the tents on a motorcycle.
At the same time, you can see the jihadists taking power in the city. Some of them make propaganda videos, others patrol the city at night to track down people who are listening and making music. Still others talk passionately about international football, while the city's youth play a football game without a ball, as it was confiscated by the jihadists. Another can be chauffeured through the desert in a jeep and always visits the self-confident Satima when her husband is not there. Although she refuses him, he gives her his phone number.
When Issan is again grazing the cows by the river, the cow GPS runs into the nets. Amadou angrily kills her with a spear. Issan runs to the tent crying and gives his father a sketchy tale of what happened. Against Satima's advice, the latter pocketed his revolver to be on the safe side and ran to Amadou to confront him. The two argue and wrestle with each other. A shot is fired and both fall into the river. Kidane gets up, Amadou is fatally injured. Before Kidane gets home, he is picked up by a patrol and taken to prison. He asked a guard to call his wife and explain the situation to her. She sits with Toya waiting on a dune above her tent in the only place with cell phone reception. Kidane is charged with murder. He faces the death penalty unless the victim's family pardons him. He is supposed to pay forty cows as compensation. The Sharia trial takes place in Arabic, Kidane speaks Tamascheq and is translated. He tries to arouse sympathy for his soon-to-be orphaned daughter in the leading jihadist and asks the translator about his origins. Because of the common language, he suspects that his counterpart belongs to the Tuareg ethnic group and that it is possible to arouse empathy in him. However, like many of the jihadists belonging to the Tuareg, this one comes from Libya and there is neither mutual reference nor pity.
Meanwhile, the musicians and the singer are arrested and whipped. A man and a woman are stoned for being accused of being in love. A girl is picked up alone with a cell phone in the evening and after a discussion marked by further communication problems against her and her mother's will, she is "forced to marry" in the middle of the night. H. raped. The Imam's intervention is denied with the argument that the views of the Islamists are willed by God and are therefore unquestionable. The oppression is intensifying. Only an older, very unconventional-looking woman with colorful clothes, no veil and a cock on her shoulder seems to remain unaffected.
Shortly before Kidane is about to be executed, the water seller manages to bring Kidane's wife Satima to the place of execution by motorcycle. When the couple run towards each other, they are shot. While the water seller is fleeing from the jihadists in the desert, Toya and Issan can be seen wandering around weeping.
background
The film is multilingual and shows incomplete and ambiguous translations between the Islamists and the urban population. This shows that they come from outside and do not belong to the city.
Timbuktu was actually first occupied on April 1, 2012 by the AQMI (Alqeida au Maghreb Islamique) , an alliance of international Islamist terrorists, and Ansar Dine . Azawad State was proclaimed.
The population massively rejected the rebels, who destroyed the public infrastructure in the first three months of the uprising, plundered private and public buildings and shops and committed numerous rapes. AQMI and its Arab allies were perceived by the population as an occupying power. The Islamic Police deployed by the AQMI were manned by people from outside Timbuktu. Many of those affected recognized children of friends and acquaintances among the torturers and looters.
AQMI set up a prison specifically for women and had a dress code. If they did not comply, they punished the women with beatings and 40 days in prison. After the 40 days, a fixed amount had to be paid, otherwise the affected person's ear would be cut off. Every Tuesday the Islamic Tribunal (Justice Islamique) was held in a hotel and new rules were imposed.
Until the occupation of Timbuktu, women naturally had a part in public and social life, so the rules of the jihadists meant massive oppression for them. On October 3, 2012, women in Timbuktu without headscarves - undeterred by gunfire in the air - demonstrated on the street against this treatment. The imam of the Sankoré Mosque, who was brought in by the jihadists, attested to them: "You are stressing women. You are tormenting them. Too much is too much", whereupon the jihadists insulted him dissatisfied. The film, on the other hand, shows passive resistance.
Music and dance as part of a highly differentiated Islamic culture played a major role in Timbuktu before the occupation. The religiously motivated bans of music and dance by the rebels met with broad rejection in the population, who, as residents of a far-reaching center of Islamic learning, have felt very competent in Islamic-religious questions since the 13th century.
The multilingualism of the film also conveys the linguistic variety and diversity of traditional ways of life in Mali. The dispute between Kidane and Amadou over the "GPS" cow alludes to conflicts in the Sahel zone, which is affected by increased drought due to climate change, between nomadic ranchers and sedentary farmers - in this case a fisherman - over scarce resources. The nomadic rancher Kidane is Tuareg and speaks Tamascheq , Amadou belongs to the Bambara- speaking group. These conflicts are located ethnically and are exploited by various Malian politicians - such as the former President Amadou Toumani Touré - in favor of their interests.
According to Gaston Kirsche from Jungle World , the film suppresses the fact that the Islamists made their living from drug trafficking, human trafficking and kidnappings and that their access to modern technology had attracted young local men - the Islamists often make phone calls with smartphones, film with video cameras, drive with jeeps. In the Timbuktus case, however, young men were recruited from surrounding villages rather than local residents.
production
A video of the stoning of a couple in Aguelhok in 2012 prompted Sissako to edit the material. The film was shot in Mauritania in the cities of Oualata and Néma . The camera was directed by Sofiane El Fani. The score is by Amine Bouhafa.
Awards
- 2014: Cannes , Ecumenical Jury Prize , François Chalais Prize
- 2014: Independent Film Festival Osnabrück , Peace Film Prize of the City of Osnabrück
- 2015: César : Best Film
- 2015: nominated for the 2015 Academy Awards for "Best Foreign Language Film"
- 2015: New York Film Critics Circle Award : Best Foreign Language Film
In 2016, Timbuktu ranked 36th in a BBC poll of the 100 most important films of the 21st century .
Reviews
"Sissako tells all of this in a polycentrically woven, but no less haunting dramaturgy and with a staff that is clearly characterized without ever being ostentatious. His Islamists are not roaring caricatures, but rather ambivalent characters who - according to their own commandments - have forbidden weaknesses for Messi and Zidane, cigarettes and sex also have comical sides. The strong, resistant female figures of his heroes are particularly fascinating, above all Satima, played by Toulou Kiki with great presence. [...] The director, who grew up in Mali, and his cameraman Sofian el Fani pack the terrible events surrounding the Islamist conquest in images that are often downright elegiac and yet razor-sharp. "
Trivia
- The performer of Satima, Toulou Kiki, is the singer in the band Kel Assouf , which makes Tuareg blues.
- The performer of Fatou, Fatoumata Diawara, is, in addition to her work as an actress, also a guitarist and singer, who works with Damon Albarn , Baaba Maal , Nicolas Jaar and the Noisettes .
- The actor in Kidane, Ibrahim Ahmed dit Pino, played in the band Terakaft until 2013 , also in the Tuareg blues genre.
Web links
- Timbuktu in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Release certificate for Timbuktu . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , October 2014 (PDF; test number: 147 663 K).
- ↑ a b Gaston Kirsche: The rule of the Sharia: In Abderrahmane Sissako's film »Timbuktu«, Islamists break into everyday life in a tolerant city. Life on the streets is drowning in fear. In: Jungle World . No. 49, December 4, 2014.
- ^ Website of the Cannes Film Festival
- ↑ a b c NoLager Bremen: Critical comments on Helmut Dietrich's essay "North Mali / Azawad in the context of the Arabellion." In: Afrique-Europe-Interact.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h Barbara Rocksloh-Papendieck, Henner Papendieck: The Crisis in Northern Mali. Current situation, causes, actors and political options. December 2012, study by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation.
- ↑ Jay Weissberg: Film Review: 'Timbuktu'. Abderrahmane Sissako confirms his status as one of the true humanists of recent cinema with this stunningly shot and deeply empathetic drama. In: Variety. May 14, 2014. (English)
- ↑ Silvia Hallensleben: Review of Timbuktu. November 17, 2014, accessed April 27, 2015 .
- ↑ Website of Fatoumata Diawara ( Memento of the original from July 9, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
