'Timbuktu,' an Oscar nominee, explores Islamic extremism

An Islamic extremist can't summon the necessary fervor while making a video hailing the jihadi cause in a scene from "Timbuktu," an Oscar nominee for best foreign language film that is based on the militant takeover of the ancient city in Mali in 2012.
     
"You're not focused," says the jihadi behind the camera, coaching the listless recruit. "Your speech is not convincing at all."
     
The film is a languid, melancholic and occasionally humorous tale that features a cattle herder, played by Ibrahim Ahmed, who falls afoul of the new gun-wielding masters in Timbuktu, a U.N.-designated World Heritage site that was a center of Islamic learning centuries ago.
     
"Timbuktu" can also serve as an exploration of the harsh ideology of Boko Haram militants in Nigeria, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria and the slain gunmen who attacked the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket in Paris. A slain assailant suspected in Copenhagen attacks that killed two people this weekend may have been inspired by Islamic militants, Danish authorities said.
     
More generally, the movie is an understated commentary on intolerance, resistance and violence, which is often implied and suggested on the screen.
     
"To speak and talk about violence or show it in a very spectacular way makes it more common, and therefore acceptable," Mauritanian director Abderrahmane Sissako said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.
     
"It's all the more difficult to comprehend when committed by people who are just like us, who look like us," said Sissako, noting that the January attacks in Paris were committed by people who may have spent time chatting in a cafe with friends, just like anyone. The three gunmen,...