Technical Data
Original title: Incendies
Genre: Drama
Directed by: Denis Villeneuve
Cast: Lubna Azabal (Nawal Marwan), Mélissa Desormeaux Poulin
(Jeanne Marwan), Maxime Gaudette (Simon Marwan), Rémy Girard (notary
Jean Lebel).
Nationality: Canada / France
Distribution: Lucky Red
Release year: 2011
Origin: Canada / France (2010)
Subject: based on "Scorched" a play written by Wajdi Mouawad
Screenwriter: Denis Villeneuve with Valérie
Beaugrand Champagne, assistant
Photography (Overview / color): André Turpin
Music by Grégoire Hetzel
Editing: Monique Dartonne
Duration: 130 '
Production: Luc Déry, Kim McCraw.
Note:
special mention at the “Giornate degli Autori”, "Venice Days" (Venice,
2010).
- Nominated for Best Foreign Film in 2011.
- Candidate for the 2011 David di Donatello for Best Foreign Language
Film.
The plot
Canadian director Denis Villeneuve intersects the personal stories of
twins Marwan with those of an unnamed country in the Middle East. The
story told by the film Incendies begins in Montreal where the
twins Jeanne and Simon, after their mother Narwal's death, summoned by
notary from which they receive a unique testament and two letters to be
delivered, the one to their father they thought was dead , and the other
to their brother that they did not know existed. Jeanne, after the
initial shock, left for the Middle East, the land from which the mother
is. First alone, then with her brother Simon, investigate to discover
the origins of their family of which they know nothing.
The twice retrace the highlights of the life of the mother in search of
the secrets buried for years. The woman who reveals herself to their
investigation is an heroic and brave creature who fought with all
the strenghth forhis/her own freedom and that of his country. The mother
is from the Middle East, has in effect a dramatic past to be
reconstructed, and that we spectators look back through a parallel
journey of the characters, one set in the 80s and the other in our days.
Retracing the stages
At the origin of the film we find Incendies, the play by
Wajdi Mouawad.
The environment in the Middle East is general and indefinite: a dramatic
landscape is the backdrop to the past
history of Narwal and to that of her children who will pass
through the same places, the same way, in a never-ending journey of
family, of people and countries illuminated by the same light, but wet
by the blood of victims always new. They are not described the scenarios
but the conflicts that have torn people and things. A narrative hatch
that gradually takes the viewer to move from the violence of war to the
wounds of the body and the soul. The violated affections, the denied
feelings, the raped bodies, appear in the foreground fixing in mind the
war with all its trail of death. As fragments of a single reality, the
events are interwoven in a series of urgent situations. The conflicting
emotions of the characters are reflected alternating other tragic
moments to others reassuring and calm. Moving with skill through the
present life of the two boys and the long flashback to the existence of
their mother, the director outlines a vibrant and engaging tragedy,
which leads to the eventual discovery with skill and precision.
Interpretation
by Director Denis Villeneuve ...
"To tell the world that you know a little, you have to listen a lot.
Leaving aside your ego and learning by the others. One thing I love
about the cinema is the working group. I was deeply touched seeing all
people working with great enthusiasm. I love listening to the troop/
crew and not being a dictator. [...] It was a long process to pass from
page to screen. The Author gave me carte blanche, total freedom. Even at
the cost of leaving only the title or a character, saying that the film
was my job, as well as the theater was his. It was the most wonderful
artistic gift of my life, because in this way it has given me the
opportunity to make mistakes, to destroy that wonderful masterpiece by
great visual power. I did a great job of destruction, and then
recreating that play for the cinema. But it was also a magnificent
journey through a year.
The idea of
waking
up in the morning now knowing that Incendies is no longer part of
my life it is a painful sensation. [...] I have used this film to
practice, to have with a final catharsis a balance between ideas and
emotions. For me it was central to show how to become adults we should
erase the anger of childhood. A past that haunts all and prevents it
from being truly in possession of their own free will without
getting rid of that anger that haunts. [...] As long as the violence
continues and the extremists have the word, peace will not be possible.
But about this problem we must all get involved. We can not say that it
does not concern us, which is a deal between the Israelis and
Palestinians. The Middle East needs us. Of all us."
by Mélissa Desormeaux-Poulin actress ... ...
"Arriving
in Jordan, I felt a strong sense of loss that I sent to my
character."
by the Author of the play Wajdi Mouawad
'It is talked a lot about the shape, the way they dealt with and told
the story, but very little about writing. It's something strange for me
because what interests me most is the writing, the poetry of language.
[...] That of Lebanon was a shameful war, in which fathers have killed
their children, the children have killed the brothers, the sons raped
mothers. The family did not want to explain to my generation what had
happened. Strangers had to narrate their story. [...] The figure of
Nawal is partly modeled on a woman who tried to kill a Lebanese military
and was imprisoned for this reason."
Pastoral use: some tracks
A mathematical equation, cruel and
inexorable, is the impression that leaves the vision of Incendies.
An intense and harrowing fresco of a woman victim and executioner at the
same time. Across a path of memory we come in the reconstruction of her
past life and rebirth of their children’s future.
- In a painful journey, littered with places and people marked by the
horrors of war, the twins will put
bare a history of brutality that inevitably marked the life of their
mother, but also their lives. In the words of the main character,
childhood “is a knife to the throat"
- It will take a lifetime (and a will) to attain maturity, to eradicate
the hatred of a violated childhood. A genetic disease that will end only
with the power of forgiveness. On those facts that might generate
resentment and revenge, Incendies, the mother, the singing woman,
lets to her children two letters inviting them to reconciliation and
hope. Only the
acceptance of that hereditary evil will ensure their rebirth in dignity
and love.
- The unknown of initial equation will find the solution at the end of
the story, the mother is no longer an unknown variable: an inexorably
discovery that moves and leaves us petrified.
Topics: Prison; Women; Family - parents and children; War;
Politics-Society; History; Violence.
Evaluation of CNVF: Recommended / problems / discussion
The film in the press
"There is a sense of sacredness in the film of Villeneuve, for the way
in which it returns high importance to moral responsibility. A result
which contributes interpreters of great intensity,
from Lubna Azabal to Rema Girard" (Alessandra Levantesi Kezich, La
Stampa, January 21, 2011).
"Villeneuve does not spare us nothing but is not heavy-handed, does not
speculate on violence and atrocities, even always find the right
distance. Insisting on the signs that time has left on the village and
the characters. And on an intellectual framework - Jeanne is a
mathematical talent - which makes it even more cruel that ungovernable
chaos "(Fabio Ferzetti, Il Messaggero, January 21, 2011).
"Here in the Middle East - unspecified, trying the paradigm - is a
woman, but there are no poetic strokes or beauty pats: the woman who
sings crying well, the violence reigns, the horror is the family size.
[...] Incendies beats hard, even for effect, but really
burns" (Federico Pontiggia, Il fatto quotidiano, January 21,
2011).
"Indefinable
the context (generically Middle Eastern) for the Author’s will that
doesn’t want to talk about a war, but about the war. The vision compels
us to pass - with extraordinary strength as to be often unsustainable -
for the hell of hatred that succinctly in one sentence that the same
Nawal pronounces during her sufferings: "I want to teach to my enemy
what I learned by life” (Roberta Ronconi,
Liberazione,
September 9, 2010).
"The film follows the canons of classical tragic theater. The main
character seems to be the victim of an unjust fate. Her fault affects
inadvertently her children. But her fall is essential to the final
catharsis. A release that is expressed here the consciousness that from
evil can only come more evil and it is therefore necessary to break the
spiral of fierce resentment not only to be able to reconcile with own
past, no matter how terrible and painful, but also to face the present
with purified, reconciled heart. The unspeakable suffering of a mother
becomes, therefore, an universal reflection of the anguish of a land and
a people. Villeneuve - showing everything without discount but without
indulging in unnecessary excesses - packs the film as if it were the
development of a mathematical equation with many unknowns and a
surprising result" (Gaetano Vallini, L'Osservatore Romano,
February 2, 2011).
"Incendies is a film that engages the viewer that requires an
active and participant spectator: who wants to orient himself with
respect to the historical and political background evoked, and shortly
explained, which is very complex, but also who wants to follow the
human dimension of the story, which is hard to swallow for its painful
implications. It is a positive connotation. The rejection of the
facility and simplification. Beautiful things are conquered and even a
little suffered. In exchange for powerful emotions "(Paolo D'Agostini,
La Repubblica, 22 January 2011).
Teresa Braccio fsp
Via san Giovanni Eudes, 25 – 00163 Roma
Tel. 06.661.30.39
teresa.braccio@tiscali.it
