A Fury Arrives. Hypocrisy, Too.

This was an intriguing movie, but about a third of the subtitles were impossible to read, because they were white on a light bckground.

Immensely touching, wise and beautiful meditation on faith, love, and family.

There are 2 symbolic sequences that get to the very heart of the movie- that the main target of fanatics are women, both symbolic and corporeal. The war is waged against women's bodies and their very being. Women in the movie are subject to cruel humiliations, repression, horrific strictures (forced to wear gloves in the desert heat). Women have no control whatsoever over their bodies or lives.

The opening sequence of traditional Dogon carved female figurines being shot to smithereens in the desert is a stunning distillation of barbarism and horror on par with Picasso's Guernica. The mutilation of the female figurines is the destruction of art, pleasure, warmth, and the human spirit.

The suffocating repression of women permeates everything in Timbuktu, like slow poison. When jihadis cannot find warmth and comfort and love, they take it by force. You rape and torture and kill. In another horrible sequence, the foreign jihadi in his sexual frustration after speaking with the beautiful wife of the shepherd, empties his AK 47 magazine shooting a bush that nestles between dunes like a mons Venus.

This movie bears witness in a quite and powerful way to ancient truth – that the evil essence of barbarism and the business of barbarians is the oppression of women.

I would like to comment on the movie, "Timbuktu". It was very moving, a masterpiece of cinematography, and , of course disturbing. My question is this: was the shooting of Satima premediated by the Jihadists, or a freak accident at the end, when Kidane was going to to be shot for his crime? Was the man on the motorcycle shooting the wife of Kidane because she did not cover her head , and was insulting Allah? It makes us feel that we are all lambs getting slaughtered for no reason. Bravo to the filmmaker, Mr. Sissako.

Any student of the Holocaust will find the actions of the town's occupiers all too familiar. Forbidding "degenerate" behavior but indulging in it themselves. Taking by force what people will not give up willingly. Imposing cruel and shocking punishments to terrorize the citizens and make them more compliant. So, too, the fate of the complacent Kidane is all too familiar. He refuses to move after all of his neighbors have fled, and realizes too late that "it can happen here."

Highly recommended to those who want to gain understanding of the ways of life of people from a very different culture and mindset. Don’t expect everything to be sewn up in a neat package for you. It is a slice of life, showing a community struggling to maintain dignity in the face of self-righteous extremists who kill and rape with impunity. Yet even the villains are portrayed with humanity. The film is beautifully acted and directed and will certainly stay with me for some time to come.

I and some friends saw the movie yesterday and we were all somewhat baffled by the critics' rave reviews. That's not to say that it is a bad movie; it's just that there is much about it that deserves some criticism. First, the good things. The cinematography is beautiful, some of the actors and actresses are lovely and the music, which is such a part of African culture, is used very effectively. It does show what is going on in Africa, with the Islamic jihadists taking over a town. However, the storyline itself is confusing. There are too many characters to keep track of, one of the key characters at the very end is never elaborated on or explained, and the somewhat contradictory treatment given to characters who resist the jihadists is also not explained. If you approach the film to see the beauty of the country and to understand some of what is happening there, then I think you will enjoy the movie. But if you want to totally understand the narrative storyline, you will end up somewhat disappointed.

It's absurd that this movie was banned by an ignorant mayor in France. I have never seen such a quietly devastating indictment of Islam on film anywhere.

I saw this film today. The theme of the film can be summed up in the iman's questions: Where is God in all of this, where is the piety, the leniency? Although the film has echoes of violence, the violence is serenely depicted so that it is not overwhelming. There are disturbing images juxtaposed with the steadfastness of the Malian people. It's worth seeing.

Timbuktu is a superb film and it is a shame that it did not get any prize at the Cannes Festival. On the other hand, i do not think that it is relevant to compare Timbuktu to Charlie"s cartoons: a cartoon is not a narrative, it has to provoke an immediate reaction. Is it really necessary to include a critic about those caricatures in a film review? It seems to me very unfair and in a way, quite disgraceful. Would we compare a novel and a maxim?

I saw this movie 2 days ago at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival and therefore, I feel qualified to comment. "Timbuktu" is still with me. The sheer beauty of the cinematography not only recalled Lawrence of Arabia for me but, more importantly, helped me understand better the life of the Muslim nomads of Mali. I think what struck me the most was the quietness of the dialogue--there was no haranguing. Unlike every other film I have seen about Islamic conflict, when there is shouting in "Timbuktu" it is in the distance: seen and not heard. This quiet made the comparison between the serenity of Kidane and his family and the Libyan outsiders and their converts more disturbing because their differences (and therefore the hypocrisy of the extremists) are presented intellectually. It is the very lack of physical conflict that is shocking. After seeing the movie, I understand so much more.

I thought the brief clip of the gangster thugs w/ their high power rifles entering into what appears to be a mosque to be quite disturbing……defiling a place of worship w/ their perverted presence was chilling. They pretend they are religious yet their actions are totally inconsistent w/ the principals of all religions and basic Humanism. They claim to hate Western civilization yet they all seem to have expensive cell phones, computers, vehicles & weapons which are all invented and produced in the Industrial nations. If these guys worship anything it's death & destruction but they are not righteous men. When will the decent folk rise up and end their horrifying oppression?

after reading the article I cannot think of a film I would rather see less than this one

The phenomenal encroachment of Islam, radical or not since 1979's PIVOTAL EVENT OF THE ISLAMIC REVOLUTION IN IRAN will bring a nightmarish war with the west in a few short years. Make all the movies you want,while you can.

"Might makes right, and the righteousness of the strong is an excuse for all kinds of indulgence." Polish this film and its cast up a bit and you have a film set in Washington D.C. Hypocrisy is inherent to ALL power systems. When they do it, shame on them, when we do it, it's in the name of "democracy" and "freedom." The fact that we implicitly condone it by not speaking out against it makes us all guilty by association.

The NSDAP was foolish, cruel, and absurd.

And that was true long before the Third Reich devastated Western culture, Western values, and Western life.

The story of Timbuktu is the story of all religions. Hypocrisy knows no bounds when it coms to clerics' attempts to gain power over others.

What an antidote to American Sniper.

Sorry, I've seen enough videos of radical Islamists in the dessert. They never seem to end well.

I had the uneasy feeling while watching this film that it was designed primarily to tell Western audiences what they want to hear.