I get why many might not feel all that worked up about the movies of French-Canadian filmmaker Denis Villeneuve. His entries are often lengthy, typically moody, usually impenetrable, and don’t necessarily stick to the rules that most big budget flicks rigidly adhere so predictably to. Think of the 2016 mind-bending unorthodox sci-fi drama Arrival, or the 2013 psychological thriller Enemy, or the 2017 ethereal existential sequel Blade Runner 2049. These are some of the most challenging films of the past decade and only represent some of what this visionary has to offer. I mean if there was ever a director born to direct Dune, this is the guy.
Hooked and tucking my lifetime gawk card for Mr. Villeneuve in my fanboy binder after seeing his 2015 border thriller masterpiece Sicario, I have sat slack-jawed more than once through all his English-language titles (I’m almost embarrassed to admit how many times I’ve poured over every frame of 2049). So, naturally, I moved on to his French movies and thus, started with something that slipped past me on release and was recently, urgently recommended by a reader, the war thriller Incendies.
Now first things first, go ahead and dump whatever leapt to mind when you read the words “war thriller” because that’s about the most generic way one might describe this deeply traumatizing story that does, yes, take place partially during “a” war, but it less about the warfare than the consequences of one woman’s ordeal when she became embedded in it. Seriously. There’s not a single battle scene in the entire runtime of this war movie. And yet, you feel its weight from the opening moments through the eyes of a boy that will have everything to do with what happens next, he staring straight at you, the child within dissipating as the darkness slowly fades the film to black.
We then meet young Nawal Marwan (Lubna Azabal), a middle eastern woman from an unnamed country very much in love with a man shouldn’t be, a refugee that … wait. I’m skipping ahead. Actually, we meet Nawal’s adult twin children first, Jeanne (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin) and Simon (Maxim Gaudette), sitting in a notary’s office where Nawal once worked. She recently died, unexpectedly, and now it’s time to read her will. It’s not an easy thing to hear, her wishes unconventional and a task leveled upon her kids that amount to a troubling mystery of which could very well change everything about who they are.
Based on a play by Wajdi Mouawad, and in Villeneuve’s deft hands, this positively pulses with tension as Jeanne sets out to find answers in another land while Simon initially balks at trying to understand a mother with too many secrets. Jeanne discovers Narwal took sides in a religious war that had her make some harrowing choices, and end up in a nightmare that lasted a staggering fifteen years. But oh, her determination and courage, earning her a nickname that would for years after be well-remembered … not always in the name of good.
This leaves Jeanne traveling along a circuitous path that eventually unites her again with Simon and then to a truth that is, in no uncertain terms, shattering. Honestly, what comes of all this, the tragedy of Nawal and her impossible role to two sides of her fate, is almost indescribable. How it’s delivered to the audience, and the way Villeneuve keeps us linked to the past and present is nothing short of mastery.
That’s thanks mostly to two very powerful performances from the female leads. Villeneuve loves his women in the foreground, and like Emily Blunt in Sicario and Amy Adams in Arrival, Désormeaux-Poulin and most especially Azabal bring intense humanity to a genre most heavily leaning on men. Azabal plays from young to old with such authority and almost crippling authenticity, it’s heartbreaking, with much of that in just the ways she uses her eyes. There’s a scene on a bus midway through the film that is jarring in its urgency and sudden brutality that is all the more terrifying simply from how Azabal sits right in the middle of it. This is movie magic.
Either way, the film is mostly spoken in Arabic and some French, so yes, if English is your game, you’ll have to do some reading, but do not let that stop you. Villeneuve is a visual storyteller and uses powerful imagery to lead you to its twisted final moments, leaving you in awe of a woman who lived her last years haunted and then faced with a horrifying truth. Make this your next night at the movies.