Review of Incendies (2010) by Jens T — 17 Mar 2012

Denis Villeneuve's Incendies (fire in french) is one of the most remarkable, humanistic and realistic film I've seen in a long time. And this is actually one of the few films I actually think capture the horror of war in the most soul ripping ways, with no mercy, no heroism and no hope. The only thing we can do is lie there and take it.

The film takes place in present day Montreal where the twin brother and sister Jeanne and Simon have just lost their mother, Nawal. She has written in her will that she don't want her remains to have a proper funeral until they have found their biological father and their lost brother that they didn't knew about before now. We follow the twins journey to Lebanon to find their father and brother, while we also follows their mother's story in flashback when she struggles to fight for justice during the Lebanese civil war in the 1970s, the war between christian and muslim militias.

Incendies is a marvelous film, it's a soul ripping film that doesn't spear our feelings, and show us what needs to be showed. It give us a perfect insight into the relations between Christians and Muslims in Lebanon both in the 70s and present day, all the dogmas and religions differences. But what I like even more about this film is that it's shocking, not only in form of violence and psychological, but also in forms of twist that spices up the whole film. Thumbs up.