Incendies (MA). Director: Denis Villeneuve. Starring: Lubna Azabal, Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin, Maxim Gaudette, Rémy Girard . 130 minutes
This Quebecois Oscar nominee (best foreign language film) is as intricately plotted as a mystery novel, keeps a critical eye on history and the causes and consequences of conflict, and possesses the mythical weight of a Tolkienesque quest story.
In this case, it is a quest for truth and understanding: adult twins Jeanne (Désormeaux-Poulin) and Simon (Gaudette) have been charged with gathering the strands of their dead mother Nawal's (Azabal) mysterious life.
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Nuwal's will is heavy with penitent symbolism. She is to be buried in an unmarked grave, naked, face-down, her back to the world. The will instructs the twins to return to her homeland in the Middle East and deliver two envelopes: one to their father, the other to their brother. Only once this task has been fulfilled will she be worthy of an honourable burial.
Jeanne and Simon are perplexed: as far as they know, their father is dead, and they have no brother. They are infuriated by what they see as a final prank by an eccentric and emotionally distant mother. But Jeanne is coaxed by notary and family friend Jean (Girard) into accepting the mission.
Incendies discloses two accounts of history. One is pieced together by Jeanne and, later, Simon, as they visit pertinent locations from Nawal's life, rubbing at the grime on the pane of time and peering through the clean spots at the partially revealed picture beneath.
The other unfolds in a series of chronological flashbacks containing Nawal's tragic and harrowing biography, which is marred by the bullets and the blood of interreligious conflict. The roots both of her own personal formation and of Jeanne and Simon's origins lie among the ruins of this fraught history.
The two accounts seem not always to agree. But they are of course different perspectives on the same story. Ultimately they elucidate each other. Incendies is a gripping, intricate epic, whose themes are amplified by individually powerful dramatic sequences:
Residents of a Christian orphanage have their heads shaved by Muslim militants. The camera zooms in on one small boy, who stares into it with an expression of fierce defiance. The head-shaver forcibly tilts the boy's skull forward, but the gesture only intensifies his stare, now directed from beneath a lowered brow. 'Don't forget about me', the stare says, and it's both a clue for the audience and a threat