Paradise Now (2005)
Directed by Hany Abu-Assad
Two childhood friends are recruited for a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv.
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They are informed by Notary Jean Lebel (Rémy Girard, "The Barbarian Invasions"), a close family friend who employed Nawal Marwan (Lubna Azabal, "Paradise Now") as his secretary for years, that her unusual burial request - naked, face down, with no stone to commemorate the site, will only be withdrawn if they succeed in delivering her letters.
As Jeanne tries to uncover her mother's past, flashbacks depict the tragic events that confronted the young Nawal (Lubna Azabal, Paradise Now) who grew up in a Christian family in the Middle East.
In fact Villeneuve must really have liked Exiles, since he also cast its lead actress in the central role of Nawal: Lubna Azabal, also familiar to Western audiences on the strength of her performance in the Palestinian film Paradise Now (2005), which shares with Incendies a dislike of didactic and ideological positioning.
When their mother Nawal (Lubna Azabal, Paradise Now) dies, twins Jeanne (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin) and Simon Marwan (Maxim Gaudette, Polytechnique) are shocked to discover that the father they thought was dead is alive and they have a brother they never knew existed.
Lubna Azabal (Paradise Now) is outstanding as a single mother who fled the troubled region with her infant twins; after she dies, her grown son and daughter (Maxim Gaudette and Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin) are instructed by her will to locate the father they'd thought was dead and the brother they never knew existed.
Like last year’s Downfall about the final hours of Adolf Hitler, Paradise Now risks offending its viewers by daring to suggest that even those who do great evil are human beings with very real motivations and reasons.
Set in the small town of Nablus during the 2004 Intifada, Abu-Assad's often-gripping drama is not dissimilar from Oliver Hirschbiegel's Downfall in its attempts to comprehend the motivations behind those who would commit atrocities against innocents in the name of politics or piety.