The New Yorker by Anthony Lane
Timbuktu is hard to grasp, as befits the sand-blown setting and the mythical status of the name. The more you try to define the movie, the faster it sifts away.
✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
Mauritania, France · 2014
Rated PG-13 · 1h 35m
Director Abderrahmane Sissako
Starring Ibrahim Ahmed, Toulou Kiki, Layla Walet Mohamed, Abel Jafri
Genre Drama
Please login to add films to your watchlist.
A cattle herder and his family, residing in the dunes of Timbuktu, have lived free and peaceful lives for many years. That is, until their quiet lives are abruptly upended by the arrival of militant Islamic rebels. In such dangerous times, the family must find ways to preserve their values, their dignity, and the strength that keeps them together.
The New Yorker by Anthony Lane
Timbuktu is hard to grasp, as befits the sand-blown setting and the mythical status of the name. The more you try to define the movie, the faster it sifts away.
The film's criticism isn't primarily rooted in satire, but rather in fury and condemnation for those who seek to be gods while shamefully feigning to follow and praise one god.
The Hollywood Reporter by Deborah Young
The film’s methods are boldly unorthodox and its constantly alternating moods and shifts in tone from drama to humor, joy to tragedy can be disconcerting. It’s not a film for all audiences, but despite its eccentricities it is always watchable, thanks to strongly drawn characters and the soul-stirring poetry of its imagery.
In the hands of a master, indignation and tragedy can be rendered with clarity yet subtlety, setting hysteria aside for deeper, more richly shaded tones. Abderrahmane Sissako is just such a master.
For all its value in bearing witness to the kind of atrocious acts that get but little attention on the world stage, this is not mere testimony, this is cleverly crafted and remarkably affecting storytelling.
Sissako's film is at turns funny, poetic and deeply moving.
The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw
Abderrahmane Sissako's passionate and visually beautiful film Timbuktu is a cry from the heart.
When it’s over, there’s nothing more to take from the film than the uneasy feeling that what we’ve seen is either intolerant and biased, or a warning. It’s not Islamophobic to fear the spread of this primitive oppression, be it in Syria or Nigeria.
Timbuktu’s delicate tone is totally unexpected and specific to Sissako, who keeps finding notes of vulnerability.
This is in no way the remorselessly grim film its subject matter might lead you to expect – it’s full of life, irony, poetry and bitter unfairness. It demands respect, but it also earns it.
You never know what you have until its gone.
Filmmaking icon Agnès Varda turns the camera on herself.
To serve humanity is to serve one's inner self.
If we could tell a film, then why make a film?
What is it like to live as descendants of the most notorious Nazi criminals?
A hyperactive boy and his best friend, a slow-witted youth with an affinity for horses, start collecting scrap metal for a shady dealer.
A father and his children wander the margins of modern day Taipei, and spend their nights sleeping in abandoned buildings.
Faith healing, family and the past collide in the frozen north.
Love and hate need no translation.
The First Letter of Knowledge