Incendies
This is a French movie by Denis Villeneuve and kinda feels like what Momento was for Christopher Nolan - an earlier, less grand movie that is tight and driven by mystery and compelling characters. It's about two siblings being left a mysterious will by their mother, her final wish being one that takes them across the vague Middle-east (most of the places are fictional to avoid political commentary) to discover her past. They have mixed feelings about their odd, eccentric mother, but as you learn about her story you quickly start to understand her. The journey is harrowing and thrilling, and that's really all I want to say about that to avoid giving the game away because the surprises are half the fun.
But the movie is fantastic in essentially every regard. It's a Villeneuve movie so you know it's shot beautifully and dynamically framed. The acting from a cast you've never heard of is consistently moving and effective. It also features a pretty cool soundtrack. The only negatives I have are impossible to talk about without spoiling, so I'll leave the main part of this review by saying that the negatives are far outweighed by the good and I couldn't recommend this movie more. It's on Crave which always sucks for foreign language films, but it gets the job done and you'll be glad you watched.
Spoiler Warning
What this movie is perhaps best known for is the plot twist that occurs at the end, and I think that's a shame because I thought it was it's weakest point. I loved how grounded the events were and how plausible the mystery was. There are a few coincidences along the way but they all add rather than detract from the story. I thought that ended with the biggest, most famous twist at the end and thought the reveal was a little unnecessary and made me roll my eyes a bit. I get it - this is a story about a cruel world and that nice moments have to be manufactured by people willing to manufactur them, but I felt this was one coincidence too many.
Also I'm not sure it even makes sense? The timeline is kinda crazy, and they don't make a ton of effort to age up the actors to where this really works. The timeline is intentionally a bit vague, but I was also annoyed that I was trying to work out the math in the final moments. The story worked without it and may have been more effective otherwise. Maybe I really just wanted that beautiful final moment that the movie seemed to promise but of course never delivered on. It creates an opportunity for a different kind of beauty, but it never fully landed for me, and is in a weird position in a post me-too world.
None of this completely changes my mind. I was on my way to declare it a masterpiece, but I think it falls just short.
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