In Arabic, French, and a bunch of tribal languages (Bambara, Songhai, Tamasheq, etc.).

97 minutes so the right length (under the sacred 100 minute mark), but I still fast forwarded from the midpoint to the end. It's about Timbuktu, which is a city on the southern edge of the Sahara desert, in Mali, above the Niger river (get out a map). Anyway, some Islamic fundamentalists, extremists I guess, have taken over the place and are terrorizing the populace with their dumb rules (women must cover up, even their hands; soccer balls are confiscated; music of any kind is verboten, etc.).

There are two beautiful scenes: a group of kids are playing a game of soccer, but without a soccer ball ... they're choreographed perfectly, it's really wonderful. The second great scene is a group of young people playing some stringed instruments, and some percussion thing, and a woman is singing some tribal song ... beautiful stuff until they're busted by the jihadists and the woman receives 40 lashes, which they do show, unfortunately. Another two people are buried to their necks and stoned to death -- nasty stuff. Not sure if they were part of the music group or arrested for some other offense like smoking or yacking on a cell phone. Nevertheless, two perfect scenes do not a great movie make.

There's another story line with a Bedouin guy who accidentally kills someone and gets the death penalty from the jihadists as a result ... anyway, it's not a feel-good movie, it's a bummer. But I don't think we need any more convincing that Islamic extremist crazies are bad dudes. Yellow rating (consider), definitely not the coveted green ... no idea why the critics were so wild about this one.

Bedouin girl thinking about the goat, GPS