Incendies

[August1991]

I finally saw this movie. It was nominated for Best Foreign Language picture (didn't win) and is now scheduled for release in America, and presumably English Canada. It's been in the cinemas in Quebec for almost a year. Despite comments from friends/family, I hesitated seeing it until last week.

Ostensibly a Quebec movie, it's really about the Middle East. About 95% of the movie was filmed in Jordan. It's also an adaptation of a play. In the story (spoilers ahead), immigrant brother/sister living in Quebec speaking with Quebec French accent discover that their dead mother from the Middle East was raped by their other brother and they were the product.

Where to start.

While the film makes it plain that the brother/sister live in Quebec, there is no obvious connection to any country in the Middle East. (For anyone who knows, it was filmed in Jordan but the story must relate to Lebanon or Syria. Why? Because the only reference to religion is Christian. The Arabic accents are all over the map.)

This lack of place makes the movie pointless. Its lack of religion (except Christian) makes the movie pathetic. I think Mark Steyn should watch it and draw a general conclusion about how the West can criticize Christianity but is afraid to make any mention of Muslims, Shiites, Sunnites or Alawites. In the movie, the mother is a Christian who loves a non-Christian (?) and survives a Christian attack on non-Christians by holding up a cross to show that she's a Christian. She then seeks revenge on the Christian who perpetrated the attack. The non-Christians are never identified but we see the mother holding crosses. Mark Steyn, go figure.

I hate stories that rely on random events to establish a plot. Alexandre Dumas and Charles Dickens did this years ago. It's no longer original, and even they did it judiciously. IOW, I hate manipulative stories that use false plot devices to advance a point. This is probably a fault of the play (I haven't seen it), not the movie. The story tries to make you sympathize with the main character and uses unlikely chance to drive its point.

In the movie, the flashbacks are confusing. I didn't really know what I was seeing, in what time period. The visual cues were not obvious enough.

OTOH, the movie is well made and production values are high. It's not boring. In this regard, no English Canadian produced movie comes close in production style.

I haven't seen Polytechnique but I think that Quebecers should not make movies about heavy topics. They are better singing in Las Vegas, dealing with circuses or creating software games.

Edited April 1, 2011 by August1991

[bloodyminded]

. Its lack of religion (except Christian) makes the movie pathetic. I think Mark Steyn should watch it and draw a general conclusion about how the West can criticize Christianity but is afraid to make any mention of Muslims, Shiites, Sunnites or Alawites. In the movie, the mother is a Christian who loves a non-Christian (?) and survives a Christian attack on non-Christians by holding up a cross to show that she's a Christian. She then seeks revenge on the Christian who perpetrated the attack. The non-Christians are never identified but we see the mother holding crosses. Mark Steyn, go figure.

See Four Lions, a British film about radicalized Muslims.

Plus, it's awesome.

[August1991]

See Four Lions, a British film about radicalized Muslims.

I haven't seen it. I did see The War Within apparently about a similar subject. But The War Within is no comedy. It's a taut drama, and I highly recommend it.

I also saw recently Sabah. It's a romantic comedy that attempts to lighten a heavy theme but at least identifies the non-Christian religion, and even identifies the country (Syria). But even in the movie Sabah, the main controlling Muslim male in the family was played by a WASP Canadian actor. Go figure.

Edited March 30, 2011 by August1991

[August1991]

This movie has become a controversy, possibly a Federal controversy.

Wajdi Mouawad, the playwright of Incendies, is a friend of Bertrand Cantat. Cantat was convicted of killing his wife, Marie Trintignant, the daughter of the French actor Jean-Louis Trintignant in Lithuania in 2003.

Now, Cantat is out of prison and Mouawad wants to have him play in a theatre in Montreal.

----

If Cantat wants to come to Canada, should our immigration bureaucrats issue Cantat an exemption visa to overide his criminal record? Or should Jason Kenney ignore Wajdi Mouawad, provoke other Plateau denizens, and simply refuse Cantat's entry to Canada?

This week, the Cantat “affair” has sparked a huge controversy that continues to sweep the media, the artistic community, the court of public opinion, the National Assembly and even federal politics.

But how could it be otherwise? No one was left indifferent when word got out that the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde and acclaimed director Wajdi Mouawad had invited Bertrand Cantat to perform next year as part of a trilogy of plays inspired by Sophocles.

The Gazette Edited April 8, 2011 by August1991

[fellowtraveller]

I thought the movie was clearly based in Lebanon, south Lebanon.

I didn't think it was boring at all, quite powerful ultimately.

Agree that the flashbacks were a bit confusing but they did get sorted out. My only criticism of the movie is that the two female actors were very alike in appearance, which added to the slight confusion over what was happening and when.

I do have a criticism of the OP.

If you feel you must reveal the critical plot device in your second paragraph, perhaps you could precede it with +++++SPOILERS++++ or something similar in the title of the thread so that anybody who might ever want to see the movie does not have it ruined. Thank you for this simple and common courtesy.