Incendies (2010)
Directed by Denis Villeneuve
A mother's last wishes send twins Jeanne and Simon on a journey to Middle East in search of their tangled roots. Adapted from Wajdi Mouawad's acclaimed play, Incendies tells the powerful and moving tale of two young adults' voyage to the core of deep-rooted hatred, never-ending wars and enduring love.
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Though inspired by Lebanon, birthplace of playwright Mouawad, Villeneuve chose not to name the setting, saying he wanted to set it in an imaginary place, like Costra-Gavras' Z, so as to free it from political bias.
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for years, that her unusual burial request - naked, face down, with no stone to commemorate the site, will only be withdrawn if they succeed in delivering her letters.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.
Micro-scopeLubna Azabal shines as a woman forced to make a sort of Middle-Eastern "Sophie's Choice" in "Incendies."
Not since "Sophie's Choice" has a mother's love for her children inflicted so much pain.
In another universe Egoyan might have pulled off something similar with Ararat, his anguished 2002 misfire about the legacy of the Armenian Massacres.
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Such complexity requires precise editing, and Villeneuve is well served on Incendies by Monique Dartonne, best known for her work with director Tony Gatlif on Gadjo Dilo (1997) and Exiles (2004).
Montreal filmmaker Denis Villeneuve's "Incendies" is a pulse-pounding saga of Mideast war and family tragedy that hits with an "Apocalypse Now"-sized wallop.
When filmmaker Denis Villeneuve (Polytechnique, Maelstrom) first saw Wajdi Mouawad's play Incendies (titled Scorched in English-language productions), he says he had "the same impression as when I first saw Apocalypse Now – astonished."
Or as Paul Thomas Anderson put it in his film, “Magnolia,” “We may be through with the past, but the past ain’t through with us.”
She travels to her mother’s homeland and, in a Citizen Kane-like series of interviews, she meets people from academics to local villagers to prison guards who fill in parts of her mother’s story.
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Incendies may cover similar literal territory to Samuel Maoz’s 2009 Golden Lion-winner Lebanon, but there’s also a sense of almost trashy, coincidence-based melodrama at work here that’s not usually seen in sombre, sectarian-issue dramas of this kind.
Better known in Europe than North America (she had a small role in Ridley Scott's Body of Lies), the Belgian actress brings a figure of mystery completely to life: as a woman, as a mother and as a seeker of truth.