Incendies (2010)
Incendies (2010) — Dir. Denis Villeneuve
Perhaps no director had a better meteoric rise in the 2010s decade than Denis Villeneuve. The French-Canadian director exploded with hits like Prisoners, Sicario, Best Picture-nominee Arrival, and Blade Runner 2049. All are critically well-received, and most made quite a bit of money. Blade Runner 2049 while not a runaway box-office smash, will likely follow the footsteps of its 1982 predecessor and increase in admiration over time. The box-office success will likely continue as 2020’s Dune remake (fingers crossed on a 2020 release) is one of the biggest and most anticipated upcoming releases of the calendar year. Villeneuve’s decade-long run did not start in 2013 with Prisoners and A24’s Enemy, but in 2010 with the lesser-known Arabic/French film, Incendies.
Incendies begins with the death of a mother. The mother is Nawal, an Arab immigrant now living in Canada. The mother has left behind a letter of her will and testament to her twin adult children, Jeanne and Simon. We learn from the letter that Nawal will not have a proper burial until two letters are delivered by her children, one to their father (who was thought to be dead) and the other to their brother (who they did not know existed). The film then cuts back and forth between flashbacks of the story of Nawal and to the present, as the children seek to uncover this past and find their brother and father.
The first major theme of the film is religious violence, conflict, and control. Set in the Middle East, one might think this would be an indictment on fundamentalist Islam; however, the film’s protagonists include Muslims and Arab Christians alike. Nawal falls for her ill-fated refugee lover. After her pregnancy is revealed, Nawal’s Christian brothers shoot him and seek to kill her, but she is saved by her grandmother, setting off to start a new life after her son is taken to an orphanage. The orphanage is destroyed by Muslim militia and the boy is made into a child soldier. Arab Christians are also depicted as massacring Muslim refugees and Nawal’s son guns down the innocent as a Muslim fighter. Middle Eastern conflicts, like countless conflicts throughout contemporary and world history, is not so easily black and white. There are good people and bad people on both sides. The main protagonist of the film is the machine that is war and violence in an effort to gain power and control. The human heart is so often enticed by power, and violence is an inevitable result.
**Big spoilers below**
Nawal is eventually imprisoned with the moniker, “The Woman Who Sings” as her relentless optimistic voice reverberates throughout the prison walls. A major twist comes when her children discover she gave birth to twins in prison after being tortured and raped by Abou Tareq, a leader of the Muslim militia. The other shoes drops when the children discover this Abou Tareq to be Nawal’s own son, unbeknownst to him. Nawal only finds this out years later. The film ends with Jeanne and Simon giving the two letters (one addressed to their brother and one to their father) to About Tareq, who now goes by the name of Nihad. The letter addressed to the father reveals a woman with unspeakable pain as a result of the dehumanizing horrors of rape and torture. The second letter to the son is filled with grace, forgiveness, and the insistence that Nihad is a man deserving of love and kindness. The final shot of the film is Nihad visiting the grave of his mother, now properly buried.
The film’s central theme is breaking the cycle of violence and oppression through kindness and forgiveness. The film’s understanding of humanity is remarkably nuanced and gray. Humans are capable of stark terror and otherworldly grace. Nawal’s two letters reveal this. Within Nihad is both a terrorist and rapist, but also a lost son longing for the love of his mother. He is a responsible agent of violence, but also a victim of the machine of war and power. There is a sense in which we as a viewer are also conflicted. We want justice and wrath, but we also want mercy and grace. Nihad seeks to move on from his past, but his mother will not allow him to do that. Perhaps he cannot shake the horrors of a previous name and life. Nihad’s first letter functions as punishment and her second as forgiveness.
In this sense, the film reflects a Christian theology of both God’s righteous judgment and his loving forgiveness. The cross is the place where both meet. Jesus is crucified, taking on the wrath of God’s punishment toward humanity. In the process, Jesus is also offering up forgiveness in what theologians call the Great Exchange. The Bible, like Incendies, is both realistic in its understanding of human nature and hopeful of a new start grounded in the forgiveness of another.