Gutwrenching, intense, beautiful, searing (yes, scorching)...

Rating: 9/10 (14 January 2014)

Incendies (2010)
Scorched is a good translation of the French title. That's how you'll feel by the end.
This Canadian movie, based on a play by a Lebanese writer, is set mostly in Jordan and is a tale of a twin brother and sister (son and daughter) looking for their roots after the death of their mother. It's quite amazing.
Don't think this is some feel-good flick. What it shows first of all, better than almost any movie I've seen, is the reality of life in wartime in the Mideast (pick your country). The ruthless, bloody, sectarian violence is made intimate in the worst way, or best way cinematically—you hate it, and feel it. This is the huge strength of the movie, giving light to the dilemmas of ordinary people trying to survive, literally, the mayhem.
Equally important is how the daughter's view of her mother changes as she learns more and more about her. The daughter is forced to do this because of a request in her mother's will, but she takes it on, in a more recent Jordan, with utter determination.
The movie is divided into two time periods. The first belongs to the mother in an ongoing series of harrowing flashbacks. The second belongs to the daughter, and eventually the son, as they look for surviving members of the mother's past. The steely force of will of the daughter turns out to be a mere shadow of the strength of her mother, and you droop in admiration and sympathy for all of them.
The huge, dramatic hook of the movie, which you only learn as the characters learn it at the very end of the movie, isn't something I can talk about here. But for outrageousness it puts Shakespeare to shame—and it was for me also a distraction. Your jaw drops and you think, oh how awful (and more)! But a part of my brain was also saying, this is too much, it isn't contributing to the truth and emotional depth of these characters.
It might even undermine them slightly, reminding us this is a stage play, an artifice.
But that's a nagging quibble. This is really a powerful movie, beautifully rendered, and acted with unusual intensity. It's rough (realistically violent) in a few spots, but it's worth it. Wow.