Timbuktu is an extraordinary film. If you click the link you’ll  find  a series of  plaudits for this including – ‘Gracefully assembled and ultimately disquieting, Timbuktu is a timely film with a powerful message’ and ‘Abderrahmane Sissako’s film about religious intolerance is full of life, irony and poetry.’    It shows the oppressors as complex human beings yet running rules, like tanks, over other beings…like pushing a metal grid into soft flesh…and that things are always complicated – that the application of simple solutions into complex situations will be a further violence.

I was thanking a member of the Picturehouse staff for showing this film, which is not a crowd-pleaser, when the devastating sadness of so many lives being cut across by the sword of rigidity… and the bleakness of life when dance and music which had been integral to a culture are suddenly prohibited, evoked a feeling of complete sadness.

I recently went to a dance improvisation group and the people who came after work were stressed and tired with heavy faces…yet after an hour and a half of moving as they liked to music their bodies and their faces had softened and relaxed so much it was lovely to see the change in them. In our country maybe we tend to take such freedoms for granted but perhaps here it is more the internal oppressions which can inhibit participation and freedom of movement…”What will they think of me – how would i do that – i don’t know if i’d like it – what are the rules?”    ‘There aren’t any’    “Well what’s the point?”    ‘There isn’t one, you don’t get to compete or work towards some idea of perfection…but you might just enjoy it, and its perfect whatever you do…’   “ooo, i don’t feel sure…maybe you go and tell me about it”   but i can’t give you my experience and i can’t really tell you about it either, that’s like spitting sawdust…

Looks like you can pay to view this film if want to see it but can’t get to a cinema, though the landscape begs a big screen …hope you enjoy it…and the dance improvisation ; )