Incendies (2010)
Incendies is a Canadian movie directed by Montreal's Denis Villeneuve. It stars Lubna Azabal as Nawal Marwan, the movie's main character. Co-starring Melissa Desormeaux-Poulin, Maxim Gaudette & the always wonderful Remy Girard, the movie begins with the reading of a mother's final will where her two children are each given a letter, asking them to locate their missing father (whom they had believed to be dead) and brother (which they didn't know about) and each give them a letter. In order to do so, they must travel to the middle east & retrace their mother's life, discovering that their mother was not what they had imagined her to be.
This movie is a masterpiece. A filmaking tour-de-force on the part of Denis Villeneuve, whose best known movies were Maelstrom (2000) & Polytechnique (2009). Those who've seen Polytechnique will recognize actor Maxim Gaudette as the mass murderer.
Nawal's story begins somewhere in the middle east (possibly Lebanon) where her brothers catch her with her boyfriend, a muslim. Since she's a christian, it's considered shameful for her to associate herself with a muslim who also happens to be a refugee. They shoot her boyfriend & then just as they're about to kill her in order to preserve the family honor, her life is spared by her grandmother. She tells her grandmother that she's pregnant & later delivers a baby boy, who immediately is taken away & sent to an orphanage. However, her grandmother tatoos one of his heels just after he is born, in order for Nawal to find her son later in life. Nawal vows to find her son one day & her story is about her journey & many struggles over the years in trying to locate her orphan son.
Her daughter travels to the middle east in order to discover her mother's past & when things begin to get entangled, she asks her brother to come & join her. Remy Girard plays the family lawyer, who was also a friend of the family & employed Nawal. We learn at the beginning of the movie that one day, Nawal suddenly stopped speaking. We are led to believe that she had a stroke & spent her final days/years in a hospital, only speaking once to her friend & lawyer, requesting him to write the letters for her.
The movie switches back and forth between the past & present, and it is beautifully done. The movie continues to entertain & maintain our interest as the plot moves along, and i must admit that this movie had one of the best finishes i'd ever seen in recent years. I absolutely loved this movie & it's probably the best movie i've seen all year, surpassing even "The King's Speech" and "The Kids Are Alright." I watched the movie in blueray & the cinematography was marvelous! I enjoyed watching the documentary that was made during the movie's filming, which is available as one of the extras on the blueray disc.
Doc Holliday's rating: 5 stars out of 5. Absolutely brilliant filmaking! A masterpiece! A movie-making tour-de-force!