Viva Lewes Issue #112 January 2016

Timbuktu
A cry from the heart
The opening scenes of Abderrahmane Sissako’s
new film, Timbuktu, starkly present
the brutality meted out to Mali’s traditional
culture by occupying forces of Islamic jihadists.
Wooden tribal statues are shot to obliteration;
a terrified gazelle is chased by a truckload of
heavily armed men. As Sissako explained to me
during his visit to the London Film Festival in
October 2014: “The gazelle is our culture; it is
being hounded. It is too weak to fight and can
only run. If the statues being destroyed offer an
objective metaphor, this pursuit of the gazelle
provides a simple vehicle for empathy.”
Timbuktu, nominated for the Best Foreign
Language Film at the 2015 Academy Awards
and playing at the All Saints this month,
portrays a place ruled by religion and a people
traumatized by division. It also honours the
rich and humane traditions of the ancient city
of Timbuktu, and the central place that music
occupies in Malian culture.
The film was shot soon after the French
military operation in Mali to push back the
jihadists in 2013. The impulse to make the film
came as a direct result of the occupation, and
the crimes being committed in its wake. “The
government in Bamako abandoned northern
Mali, and jihadists took over as there was no
social structure, no police, no order.” Yet after
the liberation of Timbuktu – originally seized
by Touareg separatists before their uprising
was hijacked by Al Qaeda-affiliated militants –
Sissako’s plans had to adapt quickly. “The idea
initially was to make a documentary about the
actions of hostile groups whose foreign members
included mostly Libyans and Algerians,
but we had to fictionalise the characters in order
to preserve the safety and security of those
who told us their stories. Then it was a short
step to re-imagining the film as a fictional tale,
but one very much born in reality.” Ironically,
this move from a non-fictional mode to a fictional
one allowed for a more naturalistic mode
of cinema; poetic, lyrical, yet truthful.
This cinematic storytelling is evident in many
scenes based on actual events, such as when a
market fishmonger refuses to wear gloves so
as to hide her hands for modesty’s sake, daring
the armed militants ordering her to do so to
cut off her hands instead. Other seminal scenes
are wonderfully imaginative cinematic devices
to challenge, and ridicule, the draconian laws
of the governing Islamists. Most memorable is
the balletic portrayal of boys playing football
44