We are the guardians of all deeds since we arrived in this territory.

So states one
of the self-described jihadists who, with his colleagues and some high-caliber
weaponry, are presuming to rule a small village and its surrounding grazing land
and waters near the place of the films title. A thoroughly remarkable and
disquieting film from Malis Abderrahamane Sissako, Timbuktu is also a work of
almost breathtaking visual beauty, but it manages to ravish the heart while dazzling
the eye simultaneously, neither at the expense of the other. Its a work of art that
seems realized in an entirely organic way.

After a tense scene in which a group of men with automatic weapons chase a
gazelle over sandy stretches, seeking to tire out the animal, Sissakos movie
quietly shifts to village life. Undercurrents of dread make themselves known as
mere irritants at first. Roll up your pants, its the new law, a fellow with a gun says
to a passing man. A woman selling fish is ordered to put on gloves, to conform to
what the fellows with the guns say is Sharia law; she protests that she cant handle
fish with gloves on. A cleric takes exception to some men entering a mosque with
their weapons. And so on. Outside the village, a cattleman of modest means,
Kidane (Ibrahim Ahmed), lives cheerfully with his wife and daughter. They seem
nomadic, spending nights under tents, but the daughter has a cell phone; like
almost everyone else in this sub-Saharan world, they seem suspended between
the ancient and the post-modern. Its a condition that brings about its own set of
contradictions, contradictions the occupying jihadists abrade. Kidanes wife, Satima
(Toulou Kiki), has for some reasonperhaps her beautycaught the intention of
the chief of the self-described jihadists, the gentle-eyed Abdelkerim (Abel Jafri).

One feels that nothing good can come of all this, but the movies animating conflict
winds up being something rather more altogether Old Testament, at least from the
perspective of a Western viewer. After Kidane loses a beloved cow to the spear of
a local fisherman, irritated that the beast has wandered into his nets, Kidane
foolhardily puts a weapon on his person as he goes to seek justice. The worst
happens (and its aftermath is depicted in an incredible long take shot from a
considerable distance, a jaw-dropping piece of filmmaking), after which the ruling
jihadists swoop in to police the situation, and subsequently advise Kidane to try to
place his affairs in order, as he cannot escape the fate that, he and his captors
agree, he cannot control. Abdelkerim sees in Kidanes plight a chance to make a
good impression on Satima, but he, too, will learn that there are some things
beyond his ability to affect.

This main storyline is only given slightly more emphasis than the other threads this
movie weaves into its tragic fabric. Some friends who are put to the lash for the
crime of playing music. (And the music in the film, incidentally, is as beautiful as its
imagery.) A young woman whose mother objects to a jihadists proposal of
marriage that later becomes a demand. And so on. The really killing thing about all
the conflict that tears this place and its people apart is how calm everyone is about
it. Nobody raises his or her voices; nobody raises a hand in impulsive anger.
Violence, when it occurs, is done in a very deliberate way. The jihadists need to
conduct themselves properly, as this conveys their rectitude. But their stance only
barely disguises their old-fashioned bullying. The treatment of women in particular
is just misogyny with unconvincing window dressing. The jihadist who wants the
young woman in marriage expects no argument; the girl is his right. And the fact
that he asks for her politely, in the logic he lays out, only underscores his alleged
right. It doesnt matter anyway; if he is refused, he calmly states, Ill come again in
a bad way.

This small-scale totalitarianism that claims to be the way of Islam and is only
justified via the barrel of a gun or the point of a lash is depicted by Sissako with
pinpoint clarity. As is the hypocrisy, as in Abdelkerims decree forbidding tobacco,
from which he secretly exempts himself. The scene in which his driver, who
previously has registered some small objections to the way his boss does things,
tells Abdelkerim that he neednt hide his cigarette use from him, is both smileinducing and terrifying, because the viewer isnt sure exactly how much real
viciousness Abdelkerim has within him, and how much that viciousness can be
triggered by his vanity. Part of what makes Timbuktu such a striking film is the
way Sissake insists on giving the jihadists full humanity even as he clearly and
deeply deplores their actions. This feat of understanding and empathy is just one of
the many things that this exceptional film executes exceptionally well.