Wednesday 10 August 2011

Incendies

2010 by Denis Villeneuve - French movie, from Quebec , Canada

I am having some really busy days that I find it difficult to write. Even if I had, I am sure I will not be able to write exactly what I feel about this movie. Sometimes you come across master pieces when you least expect it. The synopsis sound interesting so I just took this one. I didnt had any idea at all about what I was going to experience.

A mothers' will asks her twins (a girl and boy around 20 years) to find their hitherto unknown father and a brother, somewhere in Lebanon, and handover a letter. The girl sets out to fulfill her mothers wish, joined by her brother later. 

If I make a list of 10 best international movies, right now, this one will definitely be there. An absolute master piece, may I say. Within a few moments after the beginning, the movie makes you so curious about this journey and it goes on until in the final moments we come across the truth. And what a bloody, mind boggling truth it is. Brilliant, bloody brilliant. Forget about the cinematic values or everything, even if we just look at this part of the movie, it is so shocking and will keep haunting us for so long.

Once the girl sets out on her journey to find her brother and father, the scenes overlap with the mother's own journey in her homeland, when she was young, in search of her son and it is so brilliant and beautifully done that at the same time we feel like looking at the journeys of two women. The script and the director was so good here that it was unbelievable how they had placed these 2 women's journey from two different eras, in search of the same boy, son for one lady and unseen brother for one.  In fact, in the whole movie the script is brilliant with scenes going back and forth between the two periods and it has been so well put on the screen.

There is one scene in this movie, during the journey of the mother, when she ends up in a bus carrying Muslim refugees in war torn Lebanon and the bus is stopped by some Christian extremists or terrorists. The whole episode was so beautifully and brilliant shot that when all those Muslims are massacred, we sit dumb founded. Can any director picturise this scene better, I would doubt it.  Similarly there is again the scene when the mother kills a leader, for which she ends up in jail and finally had to flee to Canada, which was so brilliant. I just mentioned two scenes, but the whole movie is brilliantly shot. For long periods, it feels nearly like a thriller in fact, even if the whole movie is actually something else.

I am really short of words to explain this movie. It reaches a level which is reminiscent of classic Greek tragedies, I would say. I cant say anything more actually. Truly brilliant piece of cinema.

Brillliant, Script, Brilliant Actors, Brilliant Cinematography and Editing and an extremely Brilliant director too.

The whole world should see this movie. They ought to know what unimaginable things can happen because of the unjust world.

A truly cinematic master piece. Canada must be so proud about this movie.