Review of Incendies (2010) by Roger_Wilco — 17 Feb 2017

An okay movie, but extremely overrated by critics.

The story is basically a two-hour intellectual torture porn, piling tragedy upon tragedy so inflationarily that after one hour, I lost all emotional connection to the protagonist. Talking about protagonists, the three main characters lack depth and development and feel like they are just there to enable the (admittedly rather skillful) telling of the plot. As has been criticised by a lot of other reviewers, the plot twists become more and more contrived to the point of absurdity - which is not a big problem if you accept the movie as an illustration about the effect that war has on the fate of the individual. What's a lot more unfortunate is that exactly this illustration is ill-executed because we get so little insight into the world of the characters. The movie doesn't make a firm commitment to telling either the story of a society torn by war or that of individuals broken by war and, as a result, fails at convincingly telling either of the two.

I guess the good reviews are a result of the many - and not very elaborate - references the story makes to topics which are usually well-received by critics, regardless of the quality in which they are presented: cultural oppression of women, sexual violence, child soldiers, perversion of religion for the purpose of war, etc.

On a more positive note, it has some very well-crafted and intense scenes and well-picked scenery.

In the end, neither Incendies' plot nor its message warrant sitting through two hours of headshots, bombs, rape, child murder, torture and screaming women, so I wouldn't recommend it.