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88A story of hope amid the ruins -- one that everybody can appreciate, no matter their politics.
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75The story might have worked as well without that stick-in-the-craw coincidence, which was inserted to maximize the horrors of Nawal's past.
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80A thriller that twists and turns with an understated power that will have you gripping the arm of your seat. Terrific stuff.
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100Incendies is a gallery of nightly news atrocities - a bus massacre, rape, children with guns - yet it's made intensely personal under the director's steady hand.
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78It would be difficult not to be swept away by the dramatic intensity of Incendies.
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100It knocks you off your feet and leaves you shaken.
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63Canadian director Denis Villaneuve knows how to stoke a hot debate about the legacy of violence. But in this case, where there's smoke, there's not enough air.
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67Incendies was likely a crackling thing to read, but it's not quite so vivid as a finished film.
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88Reverberates with the power and passion of Greek tragedy.
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88The movie, engrossing as it is intentionally horrifying, is capped by a last-minute revelation that brings the story to a haunting, powerful close.
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75Incendies is occasionally compelling, but also overlong and vexing in the ways it draws out a "shocking" conclusion that we unravel long before the characters do.
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88A mystery, a melodrama, a prison film, and a love story, Incendies is foremost a scream of rage at a society destroyed by religion and by men.
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90Villeneuve's telling of her story - and of her children's - is painful, searing and something close to brilliant.
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50Skillfully made and offering moments of great power, the French Canadian drama Incendies nevertheless overplays its hand, piling tragedy on tragedy until we feel browbeaten with misery.
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80By the end theyve acquired a measure of self-knowledge at a cost dearer than they expected, which reminds us that what we think we know can be just the beginning of an existential journey.
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100Incendies is no mere riff on a Greek mainstay. It is its own entity, delicate and fierce. Already I've risked making it sound like homework. It's not; it's an enthralling drama of survival.
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88Most people do not choose their religions but have them forced upon themselves by birth, and the lesson of Incendies is that an accident of birth is not a reason for hatred.
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100The storytelling in Incendies strikes me as primal the way Greek tragedy is primal. Shattering. Cathartic. It is a breathtaking film.
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75The film's moral lesson – that violence begets violence – isn't exactly a showstopper, and the balm that is laid on Nawal and her riven family can't quite compensate for the poison that preceded it.
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50A kind name for this attitude is false moral equivalence, or perhaps post-imperial cringe. A less kind one is Western self-hatred, or an urgent plea to tolerate the intolerant.
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80Filled with striking images and the ghosts of lives lived in hardship and war, Incendies is tough but impactful.
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70The past is where all the intrigue of the movie lies, and that is where the film is at its most compelling, with the present sometimes wilting in the desert heat.
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100Denis Villeneuve's screen adaptation of a play by the Lebanese-Canadian playwright Wajdi Mouawad tells a story-masterfully-of courage, cruelty, family mysteries and a chain of anger that can only be broken by love.
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80Mr. Villeneuve tells Nawal's story in a way that is both subtle and emphatic, and Ms. Azabal, portraying Nawal from hopeful youth to despairing middle age, gives a performance that is all the more powerful for the restrained, unshakeable sense of dignity she brings to it.
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88A devastating mystery thriller from Quebec filmmaker Denis Villeneuve that grabs you hard and won't let go.
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67While the film will likely stick with viewers, it's ultimately a tossup what they'll remember most: the stunning buildup, or the massive letdown.
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83The climax is a little too clever and far-fetched-an unnecessarily neat finale for a movie that works fine when dealing in broad strokes, some of which are nothing short of masterful.
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100A staggering political drama that could put you in mind of the intimate sweep of Bernardo Bertolucci, Incendies feels like a mighty movie in our midst.
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Apr 19, 201150Nawal's travails are more in the vein of a Latin American soap opera than Greek tragedy, and Jeanne and Simon's climactic, genuinely god-awful discovery plays like artistic sleight-of-hand rather than the profoundly tautological revelation it aspires to be.
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90Although the film runs more than two hours, the story is so compelling and the production so beautifully controlled that we are gripped by the characters' quest right up to the shocking end of the story.
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80Azabal is superb, conveying Nawal's fiery presence, determination and mounting bitterness. The impressive cast includes non-professionals from Jordan, where Incendies was filmed.
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91The movie is a bumpy road of twists that leads to a revelation that has the shock and force of Greek tragedy.
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90The movie doesn't quite jell, but you'll feel its sting for hours.
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Apr 19, 201180Incendies vaults Denis Villeneuve to the status of serious director.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 13 out of 16
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Mixed: 2 out of 16
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Negative: 1 out of 16
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10
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10Greatly made building up suspense until it dazzle's you with it's shocking finish. One of the best movies of last year!