Incendies

Director: Dennis Villeneuve
Writers: Dennis Villeneuve, Valerie Beaugrand-Champagne, Wajdi Mouawad (playwright)
Starring: Lubna Azabal, Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin
Release Date: January 20, 2011
Length: 2 hours 10 minutes

French Canadian director Dennis Villeneuve takes on Wajdi Mouawad’s play Scorched and turns it into one of the most compelling graphic stories ever told on film. Incendies tells the story of twins, Jeanne and Simon Marwan who have just endured their mother’s death. When receiving her wills to them, they are told for the first time they have a brother they never knew about and have been requested by their mother to find him and their father to deliver their mother’s letters to them. As the twins journey through the different villages and cities in the Middle East where their mother lived, they unearth shocking revelations about who she was and the people they descend from that change their lives completely. Villeneuve creates a moving masterpiece of film, incredible in story and illustration as the film goes back and forth in time from the mother’s story to the twins’ discovery of it. Incendies has a beautiful narrative of two simple people who have their worlds turned upside down only through jaw dropping realizations but no impacting events. Actors Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin as Jeanne Marwan and Maxime Gaudette as Simon Marwan are exceptional as the twins. Through their fantastic performances, we can slowly see them change little by little together and apart. When they face what they know together as brother and sister, the audience is fully convinced of their close but now distraught relationship. Before it becomes a voyage for both twins, Jeanne travels on her own to the unspecified country in the Middle East to visit these places and find answers concerning her mother. In these scenes with only Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin, we are swept away by her performance as we watch Jeanne’s struggle to remain relaxed and strong through the trip with all the knowledge coming her way stopping her. Early in the film, we learn that Nawal Marwan (Lubna Azabal), Jeanne and Simon’s mother, grew up in an extremely Christian home somewhere in the Middle East (most likely Lebanon). She was kicked out as a teenager for having a relationship with a Muslim and getting pregnant with his child. This teenage boy is shot by one of her family members in her opening scene. Later as a young adult when Nawal is living with her uncle in a populated city, she becomes a revolutionary in the country’s civil war. This is the tip of the iceberg for a woman that’s cast a large veil over an incredible amount of astonishing and disturbing stories she buries when she moves to Canada. Lubna Azabal gives an overwhelming performance as Nawal Marwan from when she is a teenager to an elderly woman. She carries the entire movie and you are so constantly intrigued and bowled over by this enigmatic woman. The story of Incendies oddly has strong feelings of realism and fantasy combined into one. The film feels so real because of the constant battles and riots occurring in the Middle East but it also feels quite dream-like because this is a fictional story happening in an unspecified country where what happens to the characters is so astonishing it can’t be real. Dennis Villeneuve brings all the alarming and tragic elements of every character’s time in the Middle East to life with stunning visual effects and cinematography. This film is absolutely breathtaking to watch, highlighted by beautiful scenery of the landscape of Jordan, where they shot part of the film. The graphic special effects are so compelling that they make you choke during the war scenes with Nawal Marwan. Dennis Villeneuve leads a film with spectacular acting, a heartbreaking story, and gorgeous visuals. One of the best films of the year, Incendies is a must-see.