Incendies

"Death is never the end of the story. It always leaves tracks."Who dictates where the story begins and ends? Certainly not well read enough on the Lebanese Civil War and the Levantine region to fully understand everything going on here. Villeneuve does an excellent job of creating a story that is understandable despite covering a complicated region and explores every meaning of the word brutality. The viewer can get the gist of a lot of the surrounding conflict without much exposition and is encouraged to research on their own. Despite being quite historically and politically dense there is no shortage of brilliant acting moments, jaw dropping cinematography, and brilliant parallels. Specifically the motif of math and deciphering the unsolvable was incredible (The use of pools as the water of the womb (?) is also very interesting). Villeneuve tackles a wide net of brutal and intricate topics and accomplishes something truly remarkable and says something so poignant. It could very well be his most important film for both its setting and message. How does a director make a story so dismal simultaneously hopeful? Equally important to the exploration of brutality and the cruelness of life and death is the film's exploration of power and who has it. Villeneuve asserts that the oppressed always can reclaim the power and autonomy stolen by their oppressors whether it was stolen through imperialism, fascism, murder, or rape. Villeneuve also reassures the audience that oppression will not prevail in the ultimate course of history, no matter how much the elite class wishes for us to be completely trampled and battered. The weak become the hands of the oppressors and the strong bite those hands back. Freedom and truth, societal and personal, will always be achieved. It's just a matter of time. No equation is unsolvable.