Anna Socrates Reviews 'Incendies'

Young people with an impossible mission and few clues confront great evil and the depths of the human heart. With this opening sentence I describe not the latest Harry Potter film, but rather "Incendies," the current offering at the Greenbelt Theatre.

Canada’s entry for Best Foreign Language Film in the 2011 Academy Awards, "Incendies" — meaning “scorched” in English — conveys the terrible beauty and emotional burden of a Greek tragedy. Unlike a Greek tragedy, the fatal flaw that sets off an inevitable chain of events does not reside in the hero’s own shortcomings but in the sectarian hatreds that tear apart the Middle East.

After the death of their mother, a sister Jeanne Marwan (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin) and her twin brother Simon (Maxim Gaudette), who live in Montreal, are given sealed letters and vague instructions to find the father they never knew and a brother they never knew about.

Their quest takes them to a fictitious — yet all too real — Middle Eastern country that has barely healed from a brutal civil war of 35 years ago. But their journey is really into the heart of darkness.

“Childhood,” their mother writes in one of her last letters, “is a knife stuck in the throat.” Separately and together, brother and sister uncover a story that touches upon children, soldiers, genocide, infanticide, torture, the subjugation of women, and the horror of civil war. But there is also hope, unexpected beauty, and the fierce love of a mother for her children.

Based on a play by Wadji Mouawad, "Incendies" probably won’t grace many neighborhood multiplexes, with its mix of subtitles, unknown actors, convoluted plot, horrific violence, Middle Eastern politics and references to theoretical mathematics. This is not a movie for the faint of heart. But I will say, though, that it is one of the best films that I have seen this year, and I am grateful that the Greenbelt Theater brought it to us.

One character solemnly warns that “sometimes it is better not to know,” but I desperately wanted to solve the equation posed in the mother’s letters. Be forewarned, those who pay close attention to details will be rewarded.

Along with the astounding acting and Denis Villeneuve’s inspired direction, the cinematography was especially notable.

The faces of the actors in close-up, especially the mother’s (played by Lubna Aznabal), are etched with all the pain of living and the burden of secret knowledge.

The somber gray of a Montreal winter contrasts markedly with the acid sunlight of the mother’s homeland. A shot of a burned-out bus silhouetted against the desert sky is surprisingly, and heart wrenchingly, beautiful in all of its grim ugliness.

This film gets four popcorns from me — and five, if an extra bag is available — but no butter. It would be scorched away in the high heat of this film.