 |
||
 |
|
|
February is Oscar month, so our February movie is one that was nominated for Best Foreign-Language Film last year (and which many critics thought should have won!) French-Canadian director Denis Villeneuve’s “Incendies” is a saga of discovery that plunges us into the reality of life in the parts of the world torn by civil and ethnic conflict.
In Montreal, a twenty-something brother and sister meet for the reading of their mother’s will. In it, they are each given a task: Jeanne is charged with finding the father they never knew, and Simon is instructed to seek out a brother they didn’t know existed. Both quests lead back to a country that seems most like Lebanon, but could be anywhere civilization is barely hanging on amidst chaos and religious hatreds are passed down through the generations.
Before they finish, they have unearthed an astonishing story of their mother’s grit and survival through one crisis after another - starting with an impossible marriage to a muslim (she is Christian) and ending with . . . . well, we wouldn’t want to spoil the story. That story is almost operatic in its heroism, yet is the stuff of everyday life in those terrifying parts of the world.
7 PM Friday February 24 in the DeHaan Center at Pilgrim Park
“This is the film that should have won an Oscar in its foreign-language category this year and didn't. Its languages are French and Arabic, but there's nothing foreign about its substance, or its shattering impact. Denis Villeneuve's screen adaptation of a play by the Lebanese-Canadian playwright Wajdi Mouawad tells a story—masterfully—of courage, cruelty, family mysteries and a chain of anger that can only be broken by love.
“The ending literally derives from Sophocles, with all that implies of drama heightened—sometimes uncomfortably—to the level of myth. It's all the more remarkable, then, that Mr. Villeneuve and his superb cast keep the action grounded in the moment-to-moment realities of the siblings' quest—of the detective story, really—as they cross the chasm that separates generations and slowly discover who their mother was”
Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal
Click to read the complete review
Click below to view the Trailer
Friday February 24 “Incendies”
