Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #225: Incendies (2010).

 

Before he took Hollywood by storm, Canada's Denis Villeneuve made his international breakthrough with this war thriller nominated for the 2010 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. Incendies follows Canadian twins Jeanne (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin) and Simon (Maxim Gaudette) Marwan, who have just lost their Arab mother Nawal (Lubna Azabal). An emigrant, Nawal fled her (unspecified) native Middle Eastern country in the 1970s because of a civil war. Her will refers to not keeping a promise and her being denied a proper grave unless the twins locate their mysterious brother, whom they've never met, and their father, who they thought was deceased. After then travelling to Nawal's home country, Jeanne discovers almost everything about her mother's past except the identities of her and Simon's brother and father; for this she eventually convinces the caring but more pessimistic Simon to help her.

This is a slow-burning but ultimately resonant, thought-provoking and educational film about cultural conflict, violence and above all, family. Villeneuve and his co-writer Valerie Beaugrand-Champagne, adapting Wajdi Mouawad's play which itself drew inspiration from the story of Lebanese revolutionary Souha Bechara and ones from the 1975 Lebanese Civil War, plot and visualise this unfortunately still all-too timely and topical narrative in a wisely, effectively methodical and patient manner, interspersing the twins' combined story very seamlessly with their mother's (in flashback) so the increasing parallels between them are as clear and powerful as necessary. Gaudette and especially Désormeaux-Poulin give strong central performances as the equal guides through this quest for parental truth.

Also, Gregoire Hetzel delivers a pounding musical score, and Andre Turpin and Monique Dardonne's cinematography and editing respectively are fully appropriate and effective, particularly in the battle scenes. Incendies is a challenging watch because of its (initially) slow pacing as I said, but it once it gains in momentum, that momentum never fades. 8/10.