Incendies review

Number 160 on the top 1000 films of all time is the French-Canadian war thriller Incendies.

Jeanne Marwan (Melissa Desormeaux-Poulin) and Simon Marwan (Maxim Gaudette) are twins whose mother Nawal dies of a stroke.  Upon review of her will, they discover their mother has been keeping secrets from them.  To honour their mother's last wishes, the twins travel to a unnamed country in the Middle-East to track down their brother and find the truth about what happened to their father who they believed to be dead.

It is heavily implied that the unnamed Middle-Eastern country is war-torn Lebanon.  Through flashbacks, we discover that Nawal grew up in a Christian family during the build-up to the Lebanese Civil War.  She becomes pregnant and tries running away with her boyfriend Wahab.  However, her brothers catch her, kill Wahab and exile her to the fictional village of Daresh.  War breaks out when she is there and she becomes a refugee.

Incendies follows two narratives - Nawal's story in flashbacks and Jeanne and Simon's story in the present-day narrative.  While this was confusing at first, the editing wasn't always smoothest, after a while, the two narratives coalesced well together.  Denis Villeneuve's brilliant direction never shied away from the horrors of war nor romanticised it.  Through subtle allusions rather than all-out gore, we witness the terrible truths of the Lebanese Civil War.  When Nawal is in prison, the only clue we receive of other prisoners being tortured is their gut-wrenching screams.  And that's all we needed to get.  Gory and graphic torture porn was not on the menu.

But beyond the horrors of war, there is real heart in the film.  Incendies is driven by Jeanne and Simon's quest for the truth.  Desormeaux is brilliant in her role as the dedicated daughter committed to unravelling the mystery.  While Simon is initially hesitant, he soon joins his sister and Gaudette does well to portray Simon's inner conflict.  But Villeneuve also does well to remind the viewer that even in the atrocities of war, it is possible to keep your humanity.  After war breaks out in Daresh, Nawal escapes via a bus full of Muslim refugees.  When they are stopped by Christian Nationalists, she is spared.  She also desperately tries to save a little girl claiming she's her daughter, but to no avail. 

The film hurtles toward a shocking conclusion and great plot-twist, the likes of which I won't spoil here.  But overall this was an absolutely great film to watch.  It is simultaneously heart-breaking and heart-warming.  With power-house performances, Incendies never fails to remind you the true effect war can have on your soul.