From the nebulous Al Qaeda to the rampaging mobs who call themselves Daesh, Islamist fighters are portrayed in our media as an almost metaphysical threat: barbaric, 'medieval', an enemy that defies comprehension, they are the personification of the Terror that 'we', the civilized, are told we must fight. The beautiful and troubling film 'Timbuktu', set during the Islamist take-over of Northern Mali, reframes this story.From the opening scenes, when the local Imam orders the Jihadists out of the mosque, it is clear these men have neither spiritual nor moral authority. The rules they impose on the local Muslim population are both absurd and vicious. Music, football, sitting in the street and smoking are forbidden. The women are forced to wear gloves much as the Jews of Spain were required to wear yellow stars by the Inquisition – or as Muslim women in France are forbidden from wearing the veil today. The film demonstrates how these arbitrary edicts have nothing to do with faith and are designed solely to assert social control.One of the most beautiful sequences shows the boys of the town playing soccer with an imaginary ball in an act of joyous, collective defiance. Yet, even as they ban the sport, the most animated conversation the Jihadists have is about football, and the local youths who have joined them have presumably done so for money or prestige rather than out of conviction. In a key scene where the protagonist recognises one of the local Jihadists, the man, clearly ashamed, claims to have come from Libya. These Islamic fighters, then, have more in common with gangland bullies, Nazi thugs or the youths of the Red Guard who terrorised China during the Cultural Revolution than they do with the ancient, scimitar-wielding foe of Christian imagination – a spectre from the 'crusades' that has been diligently resuscitated in both religious camps for strictly political ends.In 'Timbuktu', as in real life, it is the local Muslims – the women in particular – who suffer at the Jihadists' hands. Yet it is clear, too, that this tyranny – like all others – will be temporary. The abiding impression of these self-styled religious warriors is of a group of deeply inadequate men – men whose own impotence and longing drives them to assert illusory dominion over a natural, female and human world of irrepressible variety and beauty

This is the second time I have watched the film Timbuktu. I did not enjoy this film the first time watching it. I also did not like the film the second time I watched it. I thought the film was kinda boring to be honest, it was also a very slow film. The only thing that I did not understand was at the end of the film the wife gets on a motorcycle and the guy hands her a gun. She goes to see her husband but when she gets off the motorcycle and the husband and wife run at each other they are both shot to death. Why are they both shot to death? I didn't see her pull the gun out and try to shoot anyone. One quality of this film that lets you know that it is not American is the fact that it is such a slow movie. Religion seems to be very important in the culture of these people because everything they do has to be acceptable under Shariah law other wise they are sent to prison. I feel violence is used in a lot in this culture but not until they have proved that is completely necessary. They said that if you are found to have committed adultery that you would be stoned to death. So as harsh as this sounds, just don't commit adultery and you will not die. It is as easy as that. Its wrong that they are putting all these rules upon their people but if they just follow them then everything will be alright.

For starters, I'm not too big a fan of slow, rather speechless films like this one. At the same time though, it still had me captivated like the other ones and for the same reason as well. It's very interesting to me seeing what life is like in countries I never really hear or care about. Also seeing the way Islamic militant groups are outside of the battlefield was a cool thing to experience. The movie also showed how everyday people live under their governmental control. I found a lot of the rules they imposed and the punishments for breaking those rules to be quite extreme. A woman was given 80 lashes for singing in her home. Something I found strange about this system was that there was a set amount of lashes for sinning, but then you were given more lashes if you confessed to doing that sin. I also just don't see what's bad about singing in your own home, or just having a good time playing soccer. That's another thing. Soccer was seen as a sin for some reason and then the kids started playing without a ball and it seemed like it didn't matter, so is soccer the sin, or is playing with balls a sin?

TIMBUKTU 11/29/15 I saw TIMBUKTU directed by ABDERRAHMANE SISSAKO - the film was both poetic in its depiction of a sense of place and the relationship of an isolated cattle herder living peacefully and contentedly with his family in a tent under the stars in a sea of sand, herding cows, gently and playfully interacting with his wife and adored 12 year old daughter (who often reaches to the sky to attempt getting a signal for her cell phone - technology has permeated all our lives,) and devastating in its description of what people have to endure living under (AQIM) Al Queda in the Islamic Maghreb in 2012 Mali, particularly when they find themselves in direct conflict with this government.TIMBUKTU shows the brutal rule of Jihadists (as they called themselves) - the hypocrisy, the legal capriciousness in the administration of "justice" and the total disregard for fellow Muslims under their authority - who are equally devout, but in contrast to those now in power, humane in the interpretation of their beliefs. Arbitrary orders concerning dress, (gloves and socks must be worn by all women), the banning of music and sports such as Soccer - edicts loudly proclaimed for all to hear from a megaphone proscribing and narrowing those very actions that allow for the breadth of life's beauty and individuality.