Incendies turns out to be the bastard love child of Memento crossed with The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

Though I can imagine this to be a film that may well reward repeated viewings, it's relentless puzzle structure disheartened this first time viewer...


3 out of 5.

I doubt I'll ever want to watch it again, but I found it incredibly powerful, effective, and disturbing. Perhaps a bit too on-the-nose with its message (and its final twist was just... too much), but still a terrifically crafted and uncommonly affecting work. I'm glad Canadians (even if they are Quebeçois) can still make films like this.

Even so, the use of Radiohead (while, again, effective), didn't really seem to fit in with this deeply personal, intimate story. Took me out of it a bit.

Which song?

Both "You and Whose Army?" and "Like Spinning Plates".

Great songs, yes, but totally out of place.

Incendies is a film of impeccable craftsmanship and near unrelenting grimness. Written and directed by Denis Villeneuve from the stage play by Wajdi Mouawad, the film follows two related stories. In the present, we follow Jeanne (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin) and Simon Marwan (Maxim Gaudette), French Canadian siblings whose emotionally elusive mother, Nawal (Lubna Azabal), has just passed away. She has left them two letters: one to be delivered to their father, whom they do not know and have assumed dead, and the other to a brother they never knew they had. So begins a familial detective story which brings Jeanne and Simon to their mother's home country, modeled on Lebanon, where they slowly uncover a legacy of horror. In flashbacks, we see Nawal's woeful youth (despised by her family for becoming pregnant before marriage, barely escaping a bus massacre, etc.) unfold.

I have a great deal of respect for this film. The cast is excellent. Lubna Azabal in particular shines, subtly suggesting vast reserves of anger, hurt, and compassion as the long-suffering Nawal. The portrait of day-to-day life in a country torn asunder by religious and political conflict is detailed and visceral. And Villeneuve uses the children-investigating-their-mother's-past framing device well. It's not just a gimmick, the writer/director is clearly fascinated by the idea of children who grew up in the affluent West completely ignorant of their family's dark history having to come face to face with it and reconcile it with their sense of themselves and their place in the world.

Despite these and other qualities, I have reservations. The film's refusal to flinch, its insistence on saying, "Fuck you, you need to sit there and watch this horror," is courageous, yet also exhausting and ghoulish. When the film plays its final card (when the letters are delivered), the revelation of the overall picture--who is who, who did what, who was born where, etc.--is so...disturbing and grotesque and depressing. It's devastating. And it also feels a bit forced. Whereas a film such as The White Ribbon slowly let a feeling of dread and melancholy overwhelm you through closely observed moments, Incendies tugs...nay, takes an axe to your heartstrings and goes into overdrive to turn your stomach. It's effective, the message of violence giving way to violence giving way to violence until everyone is wounded or destroyed is made clear, so it has to be called a solid success, but the tactics are questionable. It felt good to leave the theatre and breathe fresh air. A movie everyone should see once. A film I doubt many will see twice.

B

This may sound overly cynical, but there's no way an American movie would've gotten away, critically speaking, with the whole, "They're inbred, and their brother/father happens to live in Canada now" stuff. All the gruesome, heartbreaking, Dickens-by-way-of-Noe coincidences at work in the third act. It would've gotten a way bigger slap on the wrist. Totally got something of a pass for being an Important Film with Subtitles.

Oh, and any "happiness" in the conclusion--oh, they can begin to heal and put a stone on their mother's grave--felt so meaningless and insignificant in the face of what they learned about themselves. I don't buy it'll lead to some kind of "redemption" for them.

Very well said. I agree completely. My grade would be higher though. The bolded part is how I feel right now. Didn't see the last twist coming.

A well made movie that I wish I had never watched. Goddam.

Depressing shit aside (and there is a lot of it), I also think the editing is kinda wonky. Would have been better off just sticking to the present. Denis heard the words "show don't tell" and ask "why can't I do both?"

I will give the movie big points for its lead actress (the daughter.) Her reaction to the big twist was Grade A+ quality acting.

Overall the movie is about a 6.5/10