Timbuktu - The Familiarity of the Unfamiliar

"Timbuktu" is one of the five films nominated for an Academy Award for "Foreign Language Film" this year. The official entry of Mauritania, it is in truth as much, if not more, French than Mauritanian. But how good is it?

Nominees for foreign language film can be hit or miss. People often forget how different cultures can be, and how different perceptions of good and bad can be from place to place. This, for me, feels a lot more familiar than even some South Korean films. Even if on the surface a Norwegian and Korean appears to live more similar lives than a Norwegian and a Mauritanian. However it's not so much because our lives are alike, it's more because it's about concepts and people I hear about a lot. People I don't necessarily know, but people I know of. I think this made the film a little less interesting than it could be.

The film has an interesting concept. It's set in the Malian city of Timbuktu during an occupation by Ansar Dine, an Islamic based militant organisation. We mainly follow a family of three and their lives on the outskirts of the city. All of their neighbours have left, but they remain to herd their cattle and mind their own business. The first downfall of this film is that it doesn't exclusively follow this family. We also look at other people and groups, see what they do. It appears as if it tries to be a film about the titular city, but throughout the story it's made clear that it cares the most about the small family. The stories of other smaller characters just fade away as we focus more and more on the family. They don't do much, and the film doesn't help make it seem more interesting than it is. It has its upside, it makes the whole city seem really everyday and normal, even in a situation as it is in. But it also just makes it plain uninteresting.

The acting is rarely any good. The mother in the small family is particularly bad. I may not know the languages they speak, but they don't seem very natural in what they're doing. They look like they're acting. There are a few notable exception. A French-speaking kid who used to be a rapper does a good job portraying a boy scared out of his mind. Not entirely sure what he has gotten himself into. But all in all it falls rather flat. It's well crafted, it looks nice, it sounds nice, but there's nothing to really hold on to. Nothing to grasp. Sometimes it works, but this time it didn't.