Incendies

Nawal Marwan is executed by a firing squad in an unnamed Middle Eastern country. The film opens on this image before cutting to Canada, where her adult twins Jeanne and Simon learn of her death from a stroke. At the reading of her will, they discover two sealed envelopes: one addressed to the father they believed dead, another to a brother they never knew existed. Their mother's final demand is absolute, deliver these letters, or her grave will be dug with her head below her feet.

Jeanne, a doctoral student in mathematics, accepts the quest immediately. Simon, who bears the scars of a difficult relationship with their emotionally distant mother, refuses. The film intercuts between Jeanne's investigation in Lebanon and flashbacks to Nawal's past, beginning in the 1970s. Young Nawal is a Christian Arab student who falls in love with a Palestinian refugee. When she becomes pregnant, her brothers murder the man and force her to give birth in secret. The baby boy is taken from her and sent to an orphanage, but not before Nawal pricks his heel with a needle to leave a distinguishing mark.

Denis Villeneuve directed this 2010 adaptation of Wajdi Mouawad's play, with Lubna Azabal delivering a powerhouse performance as Nawal. The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival, won eight Canadian Screen Awards, and earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. Its budget of $6.8 million generated $16 million worldwide. [edit]

Nawal leaves her village and moves to the city, where she studies and becomes involved with a nationalist Christian militia. But when she witnesses the militia massacre civilians on a bus, she denounces them publicly and is branded a traitor. She is imprisoned in a notorious detention center, where she endures fifteen years of captivity, torture, and repeated rape by a single guard known as "Abou Tarek." She gives birth to twins, Jeanne and Simon, who are taken from her at birth but eventually reunited years later. Nawal emigrates with them to Canada, where she works as a secretary for notary Jean Lebel.

As Jeanne investigates, she meets a university professor who reveals that Nawal was known in prison as "the woman who sings." She also discovers the guard's nickname. Meanwhile, Simon, initially skeptical, is drawn into the search after receiving a threatening phone call. He joins Jeanne in the Middle East, and together they follow a trail that leads them to the orphanage where Nawal's first son was sent, and eventually to a man who may hold the key to their mother's tortured past.

The central conflict is the twins' struggle to reconcile the silent, cold mother they knew with the violent, tragic history that shaped her. The mystery deepens as Jeanne and Simon realize that the father and brother they are searching for may be the same person, a revelation that threatens to unravel everything they thought they knew about their family.[edit]