Oh egregious plot twists, when will you stop ruining our movies? You’ve already turned us against M. Night Shyamalan (though we can’t blame you for his last three disasters) and consistently do everything you can to obliterate affection for anything that precedes you. Well, we’re not going to let you win this time, because Denis Villeneuve’s 2011 Foreign Oscar contender “Incendies” was completely competent before you reared your despicable head. Maybe it’s not very profound, but there’s good work here. You’ll get yours in a little bit.
In a very striking opening, young Arab boys are rounded up somewhere in the Middle East (it’s unspecified, but the plot and locale have much in common with Lebanon), waiting their turn for an extreme buzz cut. The camera looms and presses in using slow dolly movements, giving a foreboding and uncomfortable tone to a rather no-nonsense physical scene. For better or worse, Radiohead’s “You and Whose Army” sinks in, our focus leaves the unsettling opener and introduces each character separately before finally taking us to a dreary office to jump start the plot.
Notary Jean Libel (Remy Girard, “The Barbarian Invasions“) somberly executes the will of his former secretary Nawal (Lubna Azabal, “Paradise Now“) to her teenage children, twins Simon (Maxim Gaudette) and Jeanne (Melissa Desormeaux-Poulin), who are charged with the task of finding their long-lost father and brother and giving them each a handwritten letter composed by the woman before her death. So aside from being completely broken over the passing of their only parent, they are also staggered to discover that their father is alive and that they have a brother — never mind the bizarre assignment that’s presented to them. Talk about devastating pressure. While Simon would rather just bury her and be done with it, Jeanne respects her mother’s wishes and begins the quest, leaving Canada for the Middle East. As she moves from location to location playing detective, she discovers the many different, severe incidents that shaped her parent — and we too are treated to these past-sequences, following Nawal as she goes from top mathematician to hired killer, from prisoner to child-bearer.
Nawal’s story opens with the murder of her first love, the man who impregnated her out of wedlock, and is forced to pay for the shame brought to her family. She is spared by her grandmother, who then sends both her and the baby away — Nawal to distant relatives, the baby to an orphanage. Rising above the trauma, she begins her studies promisingly, but it seems like trouble is too fond of her — yet again she finds herself in a mess, caught in the middle of a war and forced to go on the run. This coupled with the latter-day storyline certainly sounds like a lot, but even with a two hour and ten minute runtime, the film couldn’t feel any quicker. It’s not the puzzle that’s the driving force, it’s Azabal, who carries her portion with such commanding strength that it’s a wonder she doesn’t have more opportunities to take the lead. Similarly, things are subdued in the children’s plot, but Mom’s is where all the action is — from bus burnings to sniping children, there’s not a slight moment to be found. The visuals don’t skimp here and this section holds some dazzlingly beautiful shots and set design, a stark contrast to the present timeline’s more quiet, lifeless scenes. Admittedly, these segments contain some of the more extreme elements- – and really, they’re going to get attention no matter what — but they are executed brilliantly regardless of their flagrance. In fact, it’s a bit disappointing that none of these long stretches (which are so separated they feel like vignettes) make up the entire meat of the movie; surely one of them could’ve been expanded and made into something truly powerful. The aforementioned scene involving children navigating through rubble and blown up roads while simultaneously avoiding a hidden gunner’s cross-hairs is difficult to forget — but the filmmaker’s too fond of his other characters, cutting back to the protagonist’s kin and losing potency along the way.
There’s also that damn plot twist — which is, obviously, the answer as to who their father and brother actually are. No spoilers, but the result is so overly-shocking that the real surprise is the audacity of the filmmaker to commit to such a thing — to reference an early capsule review of ours, it’s more or less lifted from a soap opera. Contained within the story is a loose examination of human beings and their different facets (such as the mother being a killer, prisoner, student, refugee, etc.) which the revelation backs up a bit more, but the general idea isn’t presented with enough insight for it to be totally forgivable. Also a problem is the undefined location: while it’s fully realized with its own decades-fueled religious battles and harrowing war-time conditions, Villeneuve’s reluctance to label it as any real-world country makes things hard to follow and too vague. In interviews he plays down the connection to Lebanese history, hoping for it to be universal and neutral — the latter is bullshit (you have scenes with a child being shot by a sniper and it’s not critical of anything?) but the impersonal, watery nature of the former is what really holds things back, and it’s unlikely to elicit anything further than a shrug.
Though it is (mostly) a story well told, shocking coincidences are stringed together and depth is overlooked. When the case is finally cracked and the near appalling information is unveiled, the film deflates. Villeneuve proves with “Incendies” that he can successfully take audiences on an engaging ride, but one drastic final move and lack of anything to say only leaves a bitter taste in the mouth as opposed to anything memorable. We’ll ride with you again, but next time try keeping the last act twists to a minimum. [B-]
Don't you get it?!!! Oedipus!!!
This review pretty much confirmed what I thought about Incendies. For me the hardest thing to swallow was not the 'nauseating' plot twist but the enormously improbable chain of coincidence that took us there. I thought the film was great in almost every other respect (even with the Radiohead song). One other criticism I might make would be with regard to a seeming message about the consequences of war for ordinary people. It seemed to me that even Nahid was presented as a victim of circumstance, yet I found that I couldn't make the same excuse for him. Roger (below) mentions that in the play Nahid is drawn as a psychopathic killer and I think perhaps this would've made more sense in the film. As it stands it's hard to reconcile his career as a sadistic torturer with his eventual remorse.
The final plot twist is not only nauseating, it\’s incredulous. You can\’t watch Incendies without seeing it against the reality of the Lebanese civil war from 1975 to 1990, regardless of Villeneuve\’s attempt to anonymize its locale. Nawal is obviously in a Christian phalangist prison for assassinating one of their political leaders. Nihad is clearly (to me) a Palestinian militant who ends up in the same prison for killing seven soldiers. So how does Abou Tarek become the prison\’s celebrated torturer? Does this make any sense at all? Nope.
Apparently in the play Scorched, Wadji Mouawad draws the character of Nihad as a psychopathic killer more than a militant, so the political allegiances are far less clear.
But Villeneuve has committed a grave error in my view by somehow transforming a Palestinian fighter into a Phalangist monster.
I agree that the plot twist in this one felt somewhat overly sensational, but I have to take exception to it being singled out when a filmmaker like Christopher Nolan is so revered on this website. The series of bafflingly inane plot twists in The Prestige makes this look like a masterclass in subtlety.
All in all, I thought \”Incendies\” was a very strong piece of filmmaking, though I don\’t necessarily disagree with most of the criticism in the review.
@Josh
I did know about the play, but when I was researching, I thought every other \”Incendies\” article mentioned that and it started to feel redundant. Given that, and the fact that the script was a departure from the play, AND that it didn\’t effect how I felt about the movie itself, I decided to leave it out.
But as for the plot twist – I see what you\’re saying, I think, but the revealing of the father and brother didn\’t HAVE to be a twist, but it was. Really don\’t want to give away the answer here, but it didn\’t have to be as shocking as it was. The movie could\’ve existed if it was something else and would\’ve felt less cheap.
You may or may not realize that Incendies is based on the play by Wajdi Mouawad called Scorched. A brilliant piece of theatre.
I think you\’re review is good – but am confused by your use of the last act plot twist. The plot twist, as you call it, is actually set up in the very beginning of the film when the siblings meet with the notary. I would even call the plot twist a significant driver of the story. Without the \”plot twist\” the movie doesn\’t exsit. The brother and sister don\’t go looking for their brother and father.
I found it to be a scorching piece of movie making which left me shattered and in awe. The plot twist you so despise is what most endeared me to the plight of the characters.
I remember Kris Tapley freaking out about the ending of the movie on the Oscar Talk podcast: http://incontention.com/2011/02/18/oscar-talk-ep-53-bafta-fallout-foreign-language-and-animated-short-races-banksy-in-l-a/#more-37914
They discuss it at the 17:20 mark. It doesn\’t spoil anything, but it is funny how worked up he gets.
Great review, can\’t wait to check this out.
You hit just about every single nail on its head with this one. You echo my thoughts on the film pretty much exactly, though, in the end, I think I gave it some more melodramatic allowances than you did and would probably rank it a B/B+. I\’m glad you called out the perplexing use of Radiohead in that opening scenes – it\’s effective, for sure, but it felt cheap and easy, too.