MovieChat Forums > Timbuktu (2014) Discussion > Made me mad for simplifying and exploiti...

Made me mad for simplifying and exploiting the subject.

posted 9 years ago by Hut_Syndrom
35 replies | jump to latest

Tonight I saw "Timbuktu", I was ready to leave the theater five minutes after the movie began.
Why, you might wonder?
Because the fact that this subject is already being used and presented as a fiction material while it is still happening, is like if they were making a fiction film about Auschwitz in 1941.
Maybe in a few years it will be appropriate to tell the authentic stories, when hopefully it will be over. But now, when this piece of SH#t sharia regime is still out there, a real bloody documentaries should be made and they should scream the name of those who suffer and get butchered.
We do not need to feel for fictional characters and forget about it in 10 minutes because whatever if we want it or not, there will be time for that.
I left the movie angry and wondered what Abderrahmane Sissako, tried to say beside "Give me prizes". Why everything is simplified? why we don't see the real results of this hideous radical craziness? What about the mass killing and the drug trafficking and the raping and the forced converting to islam? What about the names of the organizations? Why to show such a cliche image of Kidane family when the true story (based on a real character) is much less pastoral? and why Abdelkerim is so humanized while he is in fact a very frightening person? It feels like a PG 13 version of reality and not a true portrait that presents the complexity of the contradictions in this area, and the contradictions of their culture with theirs? Because eventually, we look at things in western eyes and we cannot see everything as it really is.

[–] Dollyrkr 9 years ago

Your reaction is funny to me. I spend my days tutoring the people of Saudi Arabia English, and it astounds me that you imagine we could make a documentary about what goes on there when the people themselves are brainwashed and willingly held captive like an entire nation of Stockholm Syndrome victims. The women tell me, "I don't need to drive, that is for man, not for me." When I ask about the muttawa (religious police) who do not allow women to be seen with a man other than her husband, father or brother, she invariably says, "it is for my protection." When I ask about women being whipped with canes if they are seen out with a man she is not related to she says, "It is for my protection."
It's not as though it's only the governments who would not allow the hideous truth to come out about the Muslim world, it is all the Muslims themselves because they are victims of indoctrination.
And that to me, is the real point of this movie. It's shown throughout the film that the people being oppressed still believe in "allah" and really they are only at odds about *how* to worship their deity rather than even begin the conversation that religion is all mythology and education and science are what need to be introduced to give the world any hope whatsoever at ending the endless "holy wars."
The only hope for this world is atheism.
Everyone who humors these ideas of angry sky daddies is just enabling this. Even the Christians in America are enabling what happens in the Middle East. If only we'd stop arguing about "which god is the real one" and "how to worship the god correctly" there would be no ISIS, there would be no holy wars. The only reason ISIS exists is because we live in a world that humors the notion that there is an angry, insecure dude living in the sky who has a bunch of rules for us.

[–] 9 years ago

[deleted]

[–] yan-trussart 9 years ago

Apparently, the virtues of subtility are not for everyone.
But don't lose hope, maybe Oliver Stone will someday adress that topic in a manner you might appreciate more.
On a more serious note, seeing as we're already bombarded night and day by media outlets about the horrors of islamic extremism, I really don't see the point of adding yet another voice to the chorus.
But hey, maybe that's just my inner slave talking...

[–] fultoncharlie 9 years ago

I see it as absolutely *no* surprise that a Mauritanian filmmaker would give an ice-cold, dispassionate, dead-fish eye towards the horror in Mali in filming his story. I was reminded of Polanski with his direction, horror in *details*.

Why humanize Abdelkerim? Because human monsters are scarier. Think Hitchcock.

And it seems you wanted a TIMBUKTU movie as filmed by Stanley Kramer.

--
Charlie

[–] e_tucker 8 years ago

Thank you for your post and informative links. This film did not have the ring of truth for me and now I know more precisely why. The debate over the artistic license film makers use in the depiction of suffering born of overwhelming oppression and historical atrocities is not a new one, of course. This whole "debate" here reminds me of Jacques Rivette's famous criticism of Gillo Pontecorvo's concentration camp film "Kapò" and Serge Daney's essay regarding that criticism vis a vis, among other things, "Night and Fog". (Your call for a more objective, documentary approach seems appropriate to me). Ironic that those who defend the movie based on it's artistry can't appreciate that it might be the artistry that constitutes is biggest flaw and fundamental dishonesty.

[–] tjejen 8 years ago

"did not have the ring of truth for me" < most arrogant comment in the history of IMDb.

Were you there? Was your family there? Did you have to go through any of it?

No. You're just sitting on your sofa deciding what the world is supposed to look like according to you, and denying the actual people affected by the events their own voice in the matter.

"Dishonesty"????

Screw you and your trumpesque truisms.

[–] sukisukinow 8 years ago

Late to the game, but better than never in it at all. You seem to be catching a lot of chat forum venom and I am not sure it is warranted. My guess is people may be too hung up on one sentence, in which you said you wanted to leave the theater, "Because the fact that this subject is already being used and presented as a fiction material while it is still happening, is like if they were making a fiction film about Auschwitz in 1941."

As I understand, your view is not THAT this viewpoint is fictionalized, but rather WHO and WHAT was fictionalized and HOW it was done in such a way that it vastly distorts real events and people. Did I grasp that correctly? If so, I admit I did not fully understand the scope of that from your original post, and so I thank you for linking to the article:
http://blogs.rue89.nouvelobs.com/rues-dafriques/2014/12/22/le-probleme-avec-timbuktu-le-film-dabderrahmane-sissako-233966

This really does help clarify your point. The article gave the impression that unnecessary creative liberties bordering on dishonesty were taken to enhance storytelling to the point of being offensive. Say as if a WW2 film decided to portray Goebbels as a squeamish man with a precocious infatuation, and in the backdrop used a small cast of characters to grossly oversimplify different cultures and ideologies in ways that affirm prevailing Western biases caused by centuries of racism, ignorance and similar distorted narratives.

I can see how offensive this could be to those who know and understand the real characters, peoples and situations that were misrepresented. Sadly I am not one of them, but I would like to know more. Is there any other material you can recommend on the realities of Abdelkerim, Kidane, Songhai / Peul / Bozo peoples, Tuareg rebels, anything else for better perspective? Thanks.