Incendies

Incendies (2010) is the film that brought Denis Villeneuve international attention, and its source is a stage play by Wajdi Mouawad. Nawal Marwan dies in Montreal. Her will is unusual: she leaves two letters for her twin children. One for the father they never knew, one for a brother they did not know existed. Both must be found and both letters delivered before her headstone can be set. Jeanne is a mathematician and the film does not give her that profession casually. The narrative advances like an equation, and where it arrives is less a solution than a collision. The country is never named. The material draws on the Lebanese Civil War, but by withholding the name Villeneuve avoids locking the story to one conflict. There are two scenes that anyone who knows the film refers to by the same shorthand: the bus, and the swimming pool. The second is the quietest moment in the film and carries the heaviest information in it. Lubna Azabal's performance is the spine of the whole thing. It runs 131 minutes and was nominated for the Foreign Language Film Oscar. Good for: heavy drama, post war narratives, and Villeneuve. Less good for: it contains torture, massacre and sexual violence. The ending genuinely lands hard. Anyone wanting an easy evening should open something else.