Incendies: Denis Villeneuve’s Venice Bound Drama

Ask me who Canada’s best working filmmaker is at the moment, and I’d make a convincing argument that it isn’t Guy Maddin, David Cronenberg or Atom Egoyan, but instead, a French Canadian filmmaker who wasn’t at Cannes this year but will be in Venice. I’d bestow the honor on Denis Villeneuve from August 32nd on Earth (1998) and Maelström (2000) fame, and most recently 2008’s short film Next Floor and the sobering, Polytechnique (2009) and his fourth feature film, Incendies (Scorched) will be competing in the Venice Days sidebar section which regularly turns out some gems.

I’ve got the poster one sheet below, featuring actress Lubna Azabal (of Exiles and Paradise Now fame) and here’s the synopsis: Lebel (Rémy Girard), a notary, reads for Jeanne (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin) and Simon Marwan (Maxim Gaudette), two twins, their mother’s (Lubna Azabal) will. Both twins are surprised to see two envelopes: one for a father they thought he was dead and one for a brother they’ve never heard of.

For Jeanne, these two envelopes might help her to understand why her mom has adamantly kept her mouth shut ever since she was in hospital. This is why Jeanne decides to travel to the Middle East in order to know her family’s true past. Although he never loved his mom, Simon, because of his bond with his sister, decides to join Jeanne in her trip to the Middle East. Together, with the help of Lebel, the twins will discover that their mother wasn’t really what they made her out to be.