As a part of Hopkins’s Contemporary French Film Festival, also known as The Tournées, Incendies was shown on Thurs., Feb. 28.
The lights began to dim at 7:30, and students in the audience were transported to Canada, where they listened to a young woman named Jeanne Marwan (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin) speak in French (with English subtitles trailing across the bottom of the screen) to a notary about her mother’s death.
Jeanne is a mathematics student, who is about to leave the world of concrete numbers as answers to complex equations, and enter the real world — one in which the answers are much more complex than the questions. Her mother Nawal Marwan (Lubna Azabal), is the focus of the adventures that unfold within the next hour and a half.
The difference in language takes away nothing from the effect of this film as a whole.
Its intensity and suspense remain intact, the impact from the subtle details of the story remains strong and its realistic element remains powerful, all despite the fact that subtitles were required.
Although Incendies is not considered part of the romantic genre, as it is probably more of a drama, it causes its viewer to consider the meaning of “love” in a way that they have probably never considered it before.
It accomplishes this by creating one of the most unconventional (and perhaps even twisted) “love story” possible between a woman, her husband and her son, as well as that of a mother and her twins, Jeanne and Simon (Maxim Gaudette). The destinies of all these characters become intertwined in the manner of a spider web.
The “love” depicted in this movie is interpretable, like any work of art. To some, it was unconditional and selfless. However, to others, that same love was viewed as tormenting in nature.
Directed by Denis Villeneuve, this film, in all its simplicity — for it definitely doesn’t wear that flashy outfit worn by most Hollywood blockbusters — tells the story of twins who seek to fulfill their late mother’s last wish by finding the brother and father they didn’t know existed.
Their journey, essentially a scavenger hunt for clues to their mysterious mother’s past, proceeds to carry the two siblings through time and across the globe to a war-torn country in the Middle East that they have never known.
They delve into the story of a mother completely different from the one they knew, the mother they knew being someone distant and very difficult to understand. Along the way, they discover the reasons behind why it was that they knew so little to begin with. They discover a woman whose actions caused her to become exiled from one community, worshipped by another and secretive to her own children within Canada’s safe borders, far away from her dreams and nightmares.
Although the country they visit is fictional, it was shot in Jordan and created by screenwriter Wajdi Mouawad such that it makes audiences think of Lebanon in that it is a Muslim country that is in conflict with Christians, but is experiencing conflict within its own community as well.
During the discussion that took place after the screening, it was revealed that Mouawad experienced the Lebanese civil war firsthand and used his experiences as inspiration for his work. However, Villeneuve intentionally omitted any Lebanon-specific details in an attempt to show that this story was something more universal
Incendies shares certain elements — its intensity and suspense, as well as the importance it gives to family — with last year’s Oscar-winning Iranian foreign film, “A Separation.”
Similar to “A Separation,” the film showed how far each character was willing to go for the sake of their family in more ways than one.
Having the story told through the perspective of the twins was a good move, as it allowed the film to be interesting and emotional rather than depressing, and this perspective is more relatable to the average American-born viewer than the perspective of their mother would have been.
The film is a beautiful tale about standing for peace rather than for any religion, with incidents of blind hatred and vendetta dispersed throughout, showing that a moment can change the course of an individual’s life in unimaginable ways.
