Incendies

There's a certain dramatic element that Dennis Villeneuve gives to the most inordinate things in his films. Having previously watched his earlier movie Maelstorm featuring the girl from The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Marie-Josée Croze, I expected some levels of weirdness to this film too. After all, it was this same guy who gave so much personality to a dead (rather half-dead) fish that was about to be spliced open. He actually gave the fish philosophical lines of dialogue! But that was before I knew Incendies was based on a really famous play, not just a filament of Denis' own writing.
Incendies is the kind of film that one walks away from feeling emotionally drained, one where it stays in the viewer's mind for days on end. Like an intense personal experience, it takes a lot to come to grips with the film's story, a moving plot full of twists and catharsis. Denis has made four films in Canada, but this is the first one to have a major international release, most importantly in America. Right now, I see no reason why Villeneuve, or any of the actors for that matter, shouldn't have a great future ahead of them.
Incendies, based upon the play Scorched written by Wajdi Mouawad is set against a mystery to be unraveled so slowly, bringing together seemingly disparate events together in shocking fashion by the time we're through, the narrative is split into two different timelines, with the current one being the twins' journey to an unnamed Middle Eastern country in search for clues to their unknown father and brother, while with each milestone achieved of sorts, we get to see a flashback to the time of their mother, brought up in a harsh environment involving the staining of family honour, as well as religious zealots and militants who set her off in a tale of an avenging angel, and sacrifice.
Nawal Marwan, the mother requests in her will, to be buried naked with her face down and her tomb without a gravestone; further, she leaves three sealed envelopes addressed to the twins' father that they believed had deceased in the Middle East; to their unknown brother; and the last one to themselves to be opened only after the delivery of the other two. Then, they may put a gravestone on her tomb. Simon, her son is reluctant to respect his mother last wishes, but his twin sister Jeanne decides to find her biological father and brother.
The major twist of the plot however lies in a very horrifying realization which the director so subtly (and cleverly) puts into a single line of dialogue. The scene though lasting only almost a minute, can be split into three different moods, each transition making us emote at the same instance as the characters change perceptions. Curiosity. Puzzlement. Horror. Such is the level of emotional bond that Denis manages to create between his audience and his twin-protagonists, to prepare us for the ultimate mental catastrophe so we could all feel exactly what Jeanne and Simon feel when the time comes. There, according to me lies the director's masterstroke, and a very powerful one too.
Lubna Azabal who plays the mother is slowly growing into the same mould as Hiam Abbass, one of the most prolific talents that Israel has ever produced, though the two hail from different origins and ethnicities; Lubna from a predominantly french background and Abbass, from the Arab world. Lubna along with Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin carry the burden of the intricate plot with convincing ease.

The locales and sceneries though beautiful to look at, remain intentionally unspecific. You just know that the story is set somewhere in the middle-east and Canada. The generic sense in which the politics behind the scenario is dealt with and the way in which it makes you think on a lower level of individuality rather than "the big picture" speaks a lot about the plot's intentions. When people suffer quietly under tyrants who rule over them, the only thing they care about is their own families. What happens around them or to the government or to the whole world for that matter is of no consequence to them whatsoever. There are many symbols and silent unsaid commentaries like these in the movie, but the narrative also speaks volumes in many ways. The reflection is real and relevant. How can we live and leave a better future for our children? How can we brake the destructive and devastating cycle of war and hate?
Incendies could have been a better film if it allowed itself to breathe and curbed some of its drawn-out and less necessary sequences. Perhaps it could have taken a moment to smile, yea, even in the world of near-biblical suffering. Ultimately the source play shakes you up while lecturing you and the film does the same. One is fascinated by the plot twists and can see their poetic justice without consenting to believe them all. Some of the truths of war and sectarianism might ring truer if not all so neatly tied into the detective-story search for family origins. I think often in this kind of context of Claire Denis's The Intruder and Arnaud des Pallières 2003 Adieu, multi-level films about family and wrongdoing whose failures to connect all the dots make them richer and more memorable and perhaps more truly cinematic. Perhaps only a disturbing and never-explained opening sequence in Incendies of boys having their head shaved to the tune of Radiohead's "You and Whose Army" has that quality of boldly evoking inexplicable but dangerously real worlds.
As if the movie was not enough, we are also privy to Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette's stunning making-of documentary, Se souvenir des cendres - Regards sur Incendies http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1756720/ which takes a life of its own with revealing interviews, crisp cinematography, eloquent editing, poetic vision and spellbinding storytelling. It is easily the best making-of documentary I have ever seen.
Go watch this movie if you ever need a retrospection into the deep dark corners of your mind, and get astounded by the power of art-house cinema. Sell your weapon if you have to and watch it.

*spoilers*
To make a case in point, I somehow felt the mother of the twins should've taken the secret of their past to her grave, and let them continue with their peaceful lives. Letting the sleeping dog lie somehow might be the best way to deal with your life; never look back; let bygone be bygone; never believe that the truth will set you free, because sometimes, the truth will kill you. What's happened in your past is still your past whatsoever, whether you uncover it or not.