Director: Denis Villeneuve (5/5)
Incendies opens with an unsettling scene of child soldiers having their heads shaved, accompanied by the evocative Radiohead’s ‘You and Whose Army?’. The undefined nature of this scene flows throughout the film, which is somewhat structured through chapters, perhaps due to the fact it was adaptated from Wajdi Mouawad’s play Scorched.
The second scene set in Montreal is just as uncomfortable, as we are faced with adult twins Simon and Jeanne (Mélissa Désormeaux Poulin and Maxim Gaudette) who are being read the wishes of their late mother, Nawal (Lubna Azabal). Nawal has set the twins the task of locating their father and brother (neither of whom they had any prior knowledge of) and delivering her posthumous letters to them. Jeanne immediately decides to embark on a trip to Nawal’s home country of Lebanon in order to find out who their mother really was. Simon is initially resentful and reluctant to participate, but eventually earns his place in the narrative.
The core of the film is Nawal’s story itself, which takes place in a series of flashbacks intercepted by Jeanne’s discoveries in the present day. A series of increasingly disturbing events unfold, which consistently keep the viewer engaged in the film. The most notable scene is that in which Nawal is on a bus full of refugees which is pulled over by terrorists, and all the passengers are murdered except her. Set in a nation becoming progressively ravaged by war, Nawal’s tale can best be described as extreme, if verging on the melodramatic at times.
The country’s political circumstances and Nawal’s position are left largely unexplained, which can prove frustrating for the viewer; however the importance of this film is in the raw inherent human emotion within the storyline, which is precisely juxtaposed with stark cinematography. These themes are also further amplified by flawlessly intimate performances from all three of the leads, who seem to communicate their grief solely through their eyes.
Although the dense content accompanied by multiple language translations proved to be slightly draining, this film is well worth it. The palpable mystery of Incendies is only drawn out until the last moment, in which the viewer is left to comprehend what appeared almost inevitable throughout.
Incendies
