Dreadfully Boring

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

SALAFISTES is a not easy to see documentary. It didn't win the Cesar (french awarad) to the best 2016 documentary because the events in Paris - attacks to Bataclan, Charlie Hebdo ... in 2015 - they didn't want to give repercussion to the Documentary.In Paris itself there is a big community of Salafists and who knows the effects of a bigger repercussion or diffusion diffusion of the documentray.The documentary is hard to see but in some ways necessary to face reality. You'll wonder how they could have filmed it, how they get the permission and achieved to film some images, and it is not censored neither self-censored.

I just go see Salafistes. I wanted to hear the salafist discourse by his zealots (who exhibits a fanatical attachment to his cause, to blindness). This documentary is ultra violent, why? Mystery. Salafism is generally designated as the ideology of terrorism and even if there are several currents in salafism and some do not advocate the short term jihad, salafist doctrine is contrary to Western democratic values. There are some spoilers below. In this documentary the jihadist propaganda is shown without filter. Propaganda images can easily be taken for documentary images. They are not all reported as propaganda and, even when they are, it is only on the first images. These propaganda sequences are too long without purpose. We would have liked not to see the full speech of the poor American journalist nor the bodies of gay crashing to the ground. As for the interviews we would have liked the counterpoint of an enlightened reading of the Koran. Several questions to the jihadists are missing such as their opinion on French jihadists who have killed French muslims on French soil. Interviews "are rough around the edges," there are no comments to counterbalance it. In addition we do not really see the point of view of the people of Timbuktu after the departure of the islamists. I hope this film will remain prohibited under 18 and pass into oblivion. It seems to me more dedicated to serving the salafist than educating youth as claimed by the author. For the record I am recalling a remarkable documentary about political Islam "The Brotherhood, investigating the Muslim Brotherhood" by Michael Prazan.