Gore/Violence warning:
PLEASE DO NOT WATCH ANY TRAILER OR READ THE SYNOPSIS FROM ANYWHERE BEFORE WATCHING THIS MOVIE. AS LONG AS YOU CARE ENOUGH ABOUT THIS WORLD AND HUMANITY, THEN YOU MUST WATCH THIS MOVIE - IN THE CINEMA OR ON DVD.
The problem with an aging population is: The elderly talks, and talks, and talks
... like a known-it-seen-it-all ...
This is particularly annoying in this movie, due to the major - MAJOR - twist at the end, 
that should be better left to the individual audience to appreciate
Instead of letting our own pennies drop at our own time, the most annoying old woman in the world has to sit next to me and jammed the audience with incessant droppings of her pennies!!
Despite all the strong reviews, it was only shown for 7 days - exclusively at a cinema not the nearest to me. I barely made it to the last afternoon screening where senior citizens pay half price of SGD 4, so the cinema was 90% full of elderly. 4 old ladies happened to arrive late and sat to my right. Though the movie is in French/Quebecois/Arabic, there are English and Chinese subtitles - to the relief of the 4 Chinese educated old ladies, and to the misery of the audience sitting around them!
They started discussing the story line non-stop from the get-go, especially the one right next to me - ignoring all my hints for her to shut the f**k up!
She would repeat key points of the movie
: "怨怨相报何时了, 一加一等于一".
... and this is even while the camera was just panning the beautiful hill slopes of an unspecified middle eastern country.
I later read that it was filmed in Jordan, but with undeniable reference to the Lebanese Civil War that lasted between 1975-1990 as the background. It's adapted from a stage play by Lebanon born-Quebec-resident Wajdi Mouawad. WOW, it's almost inconceivable that such powerful twists and intersperse of story lines actually originated from a stage play! I would love to see the play someday!
As a movie, it is 130min long (try to imagine the stamina of the old lady!), but there's enough twists and turns, gory scenes and shocks from the strong violence to keep one at the edge of the seat.
Without giving the plot away, the main story line is about the journey taken by a sister Jeanne Marwan (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin), later joined by her brother Simon Marwan (Maxim Gaudette), from Quebec to middle east - to retrace the footsteps of their late mother Nawal Marwan (Lubna Azabal). According to the instructions in Nawal's will, executed by the notary and Nawal's former boss (Rémy Girard), they have to hand 2 envelopes:
1 to their father, whom they presumed dead,
1 to their brother, whom they never knew existed.
... and that's how the puzzle begins, as the audience joins them in collecting and fitting the jigsaw pieces, getting scorched in the process - that all the water in the swimming pool could not calm and sooth.
Repeat warning: Don't watch the trailer as they condensed way too much into those 2 minute. You have to watch the movie to get the full impact of the ending!
I have to share just 2 scenes with Lubna Azabal - her portrayal of all the pent-up complex emotions - is what makes this movie even more powerful and intense ...
Some countries (Germany, Italy, Mexico, Greece, etc) used a title that translates into "The Woman Who Sings"
, while Sweden, Denmark and Norway used a title that means "Nawal's Secret"
, and in Hong Kong, the title translates to "A Mother's Confession".
None of them was as powerful in scope and depth as the original title in French "Incendies", which means "Scorched". Anybody can scorch and be scorched, in any way. It is the most befitting title of such an unforgettable movie.
There was supposedly strong language, but that was lost in translation. There were also a lot of complaints about the inconsistency of the Arabic accents used in the movie. For that, I appreciate the subtitles for filtering out these 'noises' (not that I don't have enough noise pollution right next to me ALREADY!), just like how the director had blurred the lines - territorial, political, historical - so that the pure emotions (and NOT cheap emotions) gets directly to the audience.
!), but there's enough twists and turns, gory scenes and shocks from the strong violence to keep one at the edge of the seat. Without giving the plot away, the main story line is about the journey taken by a sister Jeanne Marwan (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin), later joined by her brother Simon Marwan (Maxim Gaudette), from Quebec to middle east - to retrace the footsteps of their late mother Nawal Marwan (Lubna Azabal). According to the instructions in Nawal's will, executed by the notary and Nawal's former boss (Rémy Girard), they have to hand 2 envelopes:
1 to their father, whom they presumed dead,
1 to their brother, whom they never knew existed.
... and that's how the puzzle begins, as the audience joins them in collecting and fitting the jigsaw pieces, getting scorched in the process - that all the water in the swimming pool could not calm and sooth.
Repeat warning: Don't watch the trailer as they condensed way too much into those 2 minute. You have to watch the movie to get the full impact of the ending!
I have to share just 2 scenes with Lubna Azabal - her portrayal of all the pent-up complex emotions - is what makes this movie even more powerful and intense ...
... and her suffering more tragic.
Some countries (Germany, Italy, Mexico, Greece, etc) used a title that translates into "The Woman Who Sings"
, while Sweden, Denmark and Norway used a title that means "Nawal's Secret", and in Hong Kong, the title translates to "A Mother's Confession". None of them was as powerful in scope and depth as the original title in French "Incendies", which means "Scorched". Anybody can scorch and be scorched, in any way. It is the most befitting title of such an unforgettable movie.
There was supposedly strong language, but that was lost in translation. There were also a lot of complaints about the inconsistency of the Arabic accents used in the movie. For that, I appreciate the subtitles for filtering out these 'noises' (not that I don't have enough noise pollution right next to me ALREADY
!), just like how the director had blurred the lines - territorial, political, historical - so that the pure emotions (and NOT cheap emotions) gets directly to the audience.
Despite being deprived of a pleasant cinema experience after paying for a FULL PRICE ticket, this movie was still powerful enough that we audience decide to bare with the bad etiquette of the old lady. You HAVE to watch this movie to understand the immense suffering of Nawal - so much so that it makes our suffering () seemed so much more trivial, changing us into more forgiving and loving (ok, that's pushing it) human beings.
Without giving the ending away, every character did get 'some sort' of closure, but not in the way anyone would've guessed. Just as most audience would've guessed that this movie will take away the Best Foreign Language Film for Canada at the 2011 Oscar's, but it lost to Denmark's much more 'politically correct' entry "In A Better World". By using his artistic license to push the envelop in this movie, Denis Villeneuve has also pushed away the Academy Award winner's envelop, with powerful scenes such as:
But in his own words (http://www.asiaone.com/News/Latest+News/Showbiz/Story/A1Story20110824-295926.html)
) seemed so much more trivial, changing us into more forgiving and loving (ok, that's pushing it) human beings.Without giving the ending away, every character did get 'some sort' of closure, but not in the way anyone would've guessed. Just as most audience would've guessed that this movie will take away the Best Foreign Language Film for Canada at the 2011 Oscar's, but it lost to Denmark's much more 'politically correct' entry "In A Better World". By using his artistic license to push the envelop in this movie, Denis Villeneuve has also pushed away the Academy Award winner's envelop, with powerful scenes such as:
"The film is neutral. There's no religion with a monopoly on horror."
And that's the price of true freedom of expression.
