Incendies Review

Denis Villeneuve's fourth film remains his most emotionally hard-hitting and a cinematic masterpiece of storytelling.

Incendies (2010) opens with a scene of a young boy’s head being shaved, seemingly captured as a child soldier in a civil war (although the country is never named, this is assumed to be the Lebanese civil war). The camera closes in on the boy’s haunting stare as leaving the audience with a feeling of dread about the life awaiting him. And this feeling accompanies the viewer throughout the 130 minutes of Villeneuve’s film adaptation of Wajdi Mouawad’s 2003 play of the same name.

The story follows Jeanne Marwan (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin) as she journeys from Canada to an unnamed Levantine country to search for answers after the death of her mother, Nawal Marwan (Lubna Azabal). Nawal’s will, which is read to Jeanne and her twin brother Simon (Maxim Gaudette) by Nawal’s former employer, the notary Jean Lebel (Rémy Girard), informs the siblings that their father, who they believed to be deceased, is in fact alive. They are also notified of the existence of a brother previously unbeknownst to them. Nawal has left two letters, one addressed to the twins’ father and one to her first-born child, who she was separated from shortly after childbirth.

Simon, resenting his mother’s unusual behaviour and demand to be buried face down if her request is not fulfilled, wants nothing to do with the task of tracking down these two long lost relations. But Jeanne, a mathematician, is determined to carry out their mother’s dying wish to satisfy the terms of the will and in doing so, afford Nawal peace. As Jeanne travels to their mother’s home country, the film interweaves scenes of the tragic events of Nawal’s young adulthood in a society ripped apart by religious warfare. We witness the very worst of humanity and come to understand why Nawal, clearly forever traumatised by her experiences, struggled in later life.

The story’s core characters ensure a gripping viewing experience, while the two notaries, Jean Lebel and his Levantine counterpart Maddad (Allen Altman), lighten the mood in the second half of Incendies with their philosophical dialogue on the importance and honour of their profession as Jeanne and Simon close in on the dark truth of lives ravaged by conflict.

Incendies is both a brutal and enthralling watch, rightly winning an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. As he has proved in his subsequent movies, Villeneuve is a supremely talented filmmaker, incorporating stunning visuals with an engaging plot which builds towards the story’s gut wrenching conclusion. There is a strong argument, despite his excellent repertoire, that Incendies is Villeneuve’s strongest film. It certainly tells the most emotionally compelling tale.