“Incendies” is a movie directed by Dennis Villeneuve that is based on the play Scorched by Wajdi Mouawad. The film is a story of a Canadian immigrant Nawal Marwan who dies and leaves a will for her twin children Jeanne and Simon Marwan. The children together with Nawal’s longtime boss and attorney Jean Label are the only individuals reading the will which includes a series of bizarre requests with the most atypical potted envelopes. The twins are expected to deliver one of the envelopes to their father and the other to their brother. The siblings know that their father long died during the war in the Middle East where Nawal grew up. They also have no idea about having another brother which renders their mother’s requests unusual and makes Simon to believe that she was crazy. As a result, he does not wish to have any part. Jeanne, on the other hand, prefers to respect her mother’s last wishes. She travels to the Middle East on a mission to trace the history of her mother which is very scanty to her. With the little information at hand, Jean finds a history that is filled with tumult and those who knew Nawal do not wish to speak to her. Eventually, she decides to ask for Simon’s assistance who reluctantly joins her. In their quest, Simon finds himself caught up when they get nearer to piecing together the puzzle of finding out their mother’s past. This is a venture that could help them understand the reason why their mother was the woman she was.
The plot of the movie shifts back and forth between the contemporary Canada and Lebanon, and the post-civil war Lebanon, though there is no direct reference to the country in the film. However, Canada is mentioned with evident locations from the textual details. The movie employs apparent subtexts from Oedipus the King and Antigone to explore how the distressing events carried on during the war periods and how they spread across generations. “Incendies” begins with a vagueness that propels Jeanne to return to Lebanon to retrace the obliterated signs of a past that is unknown. Until this discovery is made, Nawal wishes to remain buried face down till after the moment when her children deliver both letters.
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The introductory scene sets a tone for the films stagy aspect – the juxtaposition of stunning yet indifferent landscape with a piercing vista of human viciousness towards the center of the movie-text at the time when the little Nawal travels to the war-torn region of Lebanon in search of her mislaid son. When she does not succeed, she takes the road surrounded by the arid landscape. The scene between this moment till the time she slowly dozes off after boarding the approaching bus causes the viewer to get lulled into a comfort-zone by the panoramic views of nature, the long takes, and the related sensitivity of the slow movement of time. However, Nawal is rudely awakened by a hubbub outside and notices a militia group whose leader enters the bus and shoots the driver in the head. This abrupt juxtaposition of the relaxed movement of the previous moment with a terrifying scene makes the viewer to wriggle at the edge of his seat.
The Freudian classes of recalling, recurrence, and working-through in the movie are strongly emphasized by its mise-en-sc è ne and sound. The opening dark screen that gradually illuminates to expose a brightly lit area with a palm tree in an arid landscape and the sound of insects in the background depict this feature. A nine-shot series is used to bring out the harrowing experiences that Nawal goes through from the moment the child is snatched from her arms to the last one which shows her devastated face after the massacre which shows the amount of time that has passed as we hear the howling wind in the background. The next shot transitions with the help of the howling wind and focus on Nawal’s crucifix, though we later realize that it is Jeanne who is wearing it while on her mission in Lebanon. This shot brings out the visual connection between mother and daughter and gradually pieces her mother’s history together.
