"Incendies" (2010), Micro_Scope Productions, TS Productions,Phi Group
“War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it, and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out.”
So said Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman during the American Civil War but it also quite aptly describes the underlying plot of “Incendies,” a Canadian film released in September 2010.
Directed by Denis Villeneuve and adapted from Wajdi Mouawad’s play “Scorched,” “Incendies” literally translates from French as “fires” and delivers nothing less than a film characterized by epic brutality and terror counterbalanced by moments of human sweetness, empathy and sacrifice.
At a reading of their mother’s will, twin siblings Jeanne and Simon Marwan (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin, Maxim Gaudette) are puzzled by her seemingly mad requests.
Nawal Marwan (Lubna Azabal) insists on being buried face down, without a coffin and sans a headstone.
The twins always thought their mother had a screw or two loose but never really knew why.
When Nawal requests through notary Jean Lebel (Rémy Girard) that her children deliver two letters—one for a brother they never knew and the other to a father they presumed was dead—Simon walks out in disgust.
At first only Jeanne makes the trip back to the Middle East but once she starts piecing together who her mother really was—a student turned freedom fighter, assassin and later tortured political prisoner—Simon agrees to join her and find out the truth about their mother.
Although not directly stated in the film, “Incendies” takes place during the Lebanese Civil War of 1975-1990 during which up to a quarter million people were killed, over one million people displaced and Beirut, once regarded as the “Paris” of the Middle East, was destroyed.
Director of Photography Andre Turpin adroitly captures the vastly vacant, dusty landscapes of the Middle East with an uneasy beauty that avoids turning this film into a travelogue.
The horror of war is particularly brought to the forefront during a scene in which a bus carrying Arab travelers is ambushed members of a Christian militia who at a checkpoint riddle the bus with gunfire and torch it.
“Incendies” is a film that keeps driving forward like a wild herd of mustangs until delivering its unbelievable climax.
Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2011, much of “Incendies” takes place during a period of war yet is not about war per se, but about how war and cruelty destroy the human soul and strip it of its brilliance and beauty.—Steve Santiago
4th Dimension Films 