‘Incendies’ ultimately overstates anti-reprisal theme

Published 12:01 am Friday, May 27, 2011

When you hear that a Canadian film has been nominated in the foreign-film Oscar category, it may take a moment to register. But yes, the category is actually “best foreign language film,” and Canada does have a roster of French-language films every year. Voila, as they say.

Canada’s “Incendies” was one of 2010’s nominated films, and although it lost the award to “In a Better World,” it may have a longer run on the art-house circuit. This current-events melodrama has as many convoluted revelations as a Dickens novel.

It begins with the reading of a will, again, a device that seems to come from a 19th-century novel.

Jeanne (Melissa Desormeaux-Poulin) and her twin brother, Simon (Maxim Gaudette), are presented with mysterious instructions in their mother’s last wishes: Jeanne is told to find their father (long assumed to be dead), and Simon is told to find their brother (whose existence they never heard about).

These tasks will take them to the Middle East. As the twins hunt for the answers, we watch the story of the mother (excellent Lubna Azabal), who survived terrible experiences in the Middle East before escaping to Canada.

The country seems to be Lebanon (there are references to bloody clashes between Christians and Muslims), but it remains unnamed. I assume director Denis Villeneuve (adapting a play by Wajdi Mouawad) left the country unspecified because he seeks to indict all conflicts that depend on endless rounds of eye-for-an-eye reprisal.

That’s the best thing about the movie, along with its convincing location filmmaking. We are left with no doubt about the poisonous effects of the cycles of revenge; all the fighters in this film look equally horrible, and both sides take their toll on the mother figure, who absorbs the most punishing results of the feud.

Having said that, I also think that “Incendies” stretches its theme too far in the final reels. Forget the 19th-century novel; this movie wants to be a Greek tragedy, the kind with the fateful coincidences and hellish taboos.

It all becomes a little too far-fetched to believe, even with a willing suspension of disbelief. I even had a hard time figuring out the time-shifting, and how old the characters would have to be to make all the plot turns fit together. Although maybe they do.

I think “Incendies” will find an audience, because it is a well-made picture on a serious subject. But as for it losing the Oscar … I think I’m all right with that.

“Incendies” ½

A Canadian film (and foreign-language Oscar nominee) about the terrible consequences of eye-for-an-eye violence in the Middle East, as seen through a couple of generations of a much-beleaguered family. The film’s well made in many ways, although a reach for the levels of Greek tragedy make the final reels a little difficult to believe. In French and Arabic, with English subtitles.

Rated: R for violence, subject matter

Showing: Harvard Exit