#abel jafri

[scenesandscreens]

Timbuktu (2014) Director - Abderrahmane Sissako, Cinematography - Sofian El Fani "Since the sun came up this morning...and I am still alive, God has granted me one more day, and what's to happen, I accept. I'll miss only one thing. A face. My daughter's face. My wife's. I'll ask God...if you have children...that He help you...understand my pain. I don't fear the death you're giving me. It's a part of me already. Since you claim you follow Allah's law...do it."

[whileiamdying]

TIMBUKTU

By A. O. Scott (Jan. 27, 2015)

This month, Abderrahmane Sissako’s “Timbuktu,” an official selection in Cannes last year and a current nominee for the best foreign-language film Oscar, was caught up in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo murders, when the mayor of a Paris suburb briefly succeeded in banning it from a local cinema. Coming amid an outpouring of public and official support for freedom of speech, this act of censorship was both dismaying and ridiculous.

Mr. Sissako’s movie, far from being “an apology for terrorism,” as the mayor (who, of course, had not seen it) supposed, is an unflinching, quietly furious exploration of life under radical Islamist rule. It also makes a point about power that even nonextremist, democratically elected leaders would do well to keep in mind. When you try to restrict the movies people can see, the music they can play or the opinions they can express — in the name of whatever theological or secular ideal you claim to represent — you may or may not become a monster. That you will make a fool of yourself is, in contrast, a moral certainty.

The authority of the jihadists in “Timbuktu” is cruel, but it is also absurd. Mr. Sissako, who was born in Mauritania and whose films have mainly been set, like this one, in Mali, examines the varieties of this absurdity with an eye that is calm, compassionate and remorseless. The most obvious vice exhibited by members of the militia controlling the desert city of Timbuktu in the name of Allah is hypocrisy.

Their failures to live up to their own rigid notions of Shariah law are evidence of their humanity. Abdelkrim (Abel Jafri), one of the leaders, sneaks off behind a dune to smoke a cigarette, an activity he has forbidden in the city. “Everyone knows you smoke,” says his young driver, who has been trying to teach his boss to drive a stick shift. In the midst of flirting with the wife of a herdsman, Abdelkrim scolds her for immodestly leaving her hair uncovered. He also experiences a frustration common to many filmmakers when he tries to direct a video featuring a young fighter whose diffident, hip-hop-inflected performance style doesn’t quite strike the right tone. “We’re not doing, ‘Yo, man,’ ” says the would-be auteur, “we’re doing religion.”

But the way he and his comrades do it is hardly a laughing matter. In the course of the film, a couple accused of adultery are stoned to death. Members of the Islamic Police storm a house where music is being played, and one of the musicians (a woman, of course) is publicly whipped for the crime. When a jihadist’s offer of marriage is refused, he vows to take his would-be bride by force. When he does, the commanders inform the local imam that their interpretation of Muslim law is, by definition, the correct one. Might makes right, and the righteousness of the strong is an excuse for all kinds of indulgence.

Collectively, these warriors in the name of Allah are a bunch of bullies. They are indifferent to local customs and ignorant of many of the languages spoken by residents of Timbuktu, an ancient trading hub known for its cosmopolitanism. Individually, the fighters are sometimes sadistic, sometimes weak, sometimes kind and frequently confused.

Showing them this way is not a matter of “humanizing” fanaticism, which is the kind of accusation that is often unthinkingly leveled at stories that veer away from presenting political conflict as a simple fight between good and evil. How could the bad guys be anything other than human? Their folly lies in the belief that they can transcend that condition and terrorize their fellow Muslims into holiness. They may be sincere in their devotion to their God and his prophet, but they are still jerks. “Timbuktu” is an act of resistance and revenge because it asserts the power of secularism not as an ideology but rather as a stubborn fact of life.

In that way, it is un peu Charlie Hebdo, though Mr. Sissako’s sensibility is gentler, his satirical impulse less scabrous and his imagination more expansive than that shared by most of the magazine’s cartoonists. There is a strong current of anger and disgust running through his film, which was inspired by the Islamist takeover of Timbuktu and other parts of northern Mali in 2012. With some adjustments, it could have been set in Syria, Iraq, Nigeria or Pakistan. But the glory of “Timbuktu” lies in its devotion to local knowledge, in the way it allows its gaze to wander away from violence toward images of beauty and grace.

Mr. Sissako’s previous feature, “Bamako” (named for Mali’s capital city), similarly embedded a political argument in a rich evocation of daily life. In that film, the main action is a surreal (but entirely earnest) trial of the institutions of neo-liberalism for crimes against Africa. But the story keeps wondering off into the streets of the city, taking refuge from abstraction in the pleasures and travails of everyday life.

The narrative of “Timbuktu” is a weave of anecdotes and subplots, but it returns frequently to the tent in the dusty hills outside the city where Kidane (Ibrahim Ahmed) lives with his wife, Satima (Toulou Kiki), and their daughter, Toya (Layla Walet Mohamed), tending cows and drinking tea. The presence of the heavily armed fanatics running Timbuktu sends a dispute involving Kidane and one of his neighbors spinning toward tragedy and horror, but Kidane is more than just an innocent victim, in just the way that Mr. Sissako’s film is more than a simple polemic. He is a symbol of decency and tolerance, of everything the extremists want to destroy, precisely because he is an intriguing, fully rendered individual. And “Timbuktu” is a political film in the way that “The Bicycle Thief” or “Modern Times” is a political film: It feels at once timely and permanent, immediate and essential.

“Timbuktu” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). Horrific violence, discreetly presented.

Timbuktu

NYT Critic's Pick Director Abderrahmane Sissako. Writers Abderrahmane Sissako, Kessen Tall Stars Ibrahim Ahmed, Abel Jafri, Toulou Kiki, Layla Walet Mohamed, Mehdi A.G. Mohamed. Rating PG-13, Running Time: 1h37m. Genre: Drama.

Movie data powered by IMDb.com

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page C1 of the New York edition with the headline: A Fury Arrives. Hypocrisy, Too.

[desmondag]

L'extraordinaire Voyage du Fakir ! Qui aurait cru que l'on puisse écrire une histoire en partant d'une armoire Ikea :p

L’extraordinaire Voyage du Fakir ! Qui aurait cru que l’on puisse écrire une histoire en partant d’une armoire Ikea :p

Aujourd’hui c’est cinéma avec le film L’extraordinaire Voyage du Fakir, un film qui m’a particulièrement surpris et que je conseille vivement ! Ne surtout pas prendre peur en voyant le titre 😉

source

Découvrons l’ambiance 😉

(more…)

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[mentatzps]

L'extraordinaire voyage du fakir

L’extraordinaire voyage du fakir

– Titre original : The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir

– Date de sortie : 30 mai 2018

– Réalisé par : Ken Scott

– Synopsis: Aja, un jeune arnaqueur de Mumbai entame, à la mort de sa mère, un extraordinaire voyage sur les traces du père qu’il n’a jamais connu. Il rencontre l’amour à Paris dans un magasin de meubles suédois, le danger en compagnie de migrants somaliens en Angleterre, la…

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[samuelpiret]

L'extraordinaire voyage du fakir

L’extraordinaire voyage du fakir

– Titre original : The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir

– Date de sortie : 30 mai 2018

– Réalisé par : Ken Scott

– Synopsis: Aja, un jeune arnaqueur de Mumbai entame, à la mort de sa mère, un extraordinaire voyage sur les traces du père qu’il n’a jamais connu. Il rencontre l’amour à Paris dans un magasin de meubles suédois, le danger en compagnie de migrants somaliens en Angleterre, la…

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[filmmeetsmovie]

Dhanush's Hollywood Film's FIRST LOOK Revealed!

Dhanush’s Hollywood Film’s FIRST LOOK Revealed!

#Dhanush #Hollywood #TheExtraordinaryJourneyofthefakir #TEJOTF Tamil actor and producer Dhanush will soon be making his debut in Hollywood with a film titled ‘The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir’ which is being directed by Ken Scott. The actor recently wrapped up the shooting of the film and has commenced work on his next Tamil film. The makers of the film have now revealed the first look…

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[flickfeast]

Timbuktu (2014)

Will Day-Brosnan thinks #Timbuktu is "is humane, complex, beautiful film-making of the highest order" 9/10

Timbuktu is sparse, meditative storytelling which barely conceals its anger at religious totalitarianism and nihilistic barbarism.

The film is one in which personal tragedy painfully intersects with larger politico-religious transformations which are taking place; an accidental murder involving a cattle herder Kidane (played with quiet dignity by Ibrahim Ahmed) coincides with the Islamist…

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[ohabunudamiizlemedin]

Timbuktu (2014)