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By Joe O'Connell, Fri., March 18, 2011

SXSW Film

Incendies

Festival Favorites
D: Denis Villeneuve; with Lubna Azabal, Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin, Maxim Gaudette

Imagine your mother dies. Her will states her body be buried naked, face down in an unmarked grave. She instructs you to go to the father you thought was dead in a Middle East homeland which is alien to you. Oh, there's the brother she never told you about. Deliver these letters. Incendies, French for "destruction by fire," earned an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. The film follows Canadian twins into the twisting stream of their mother's life. It is a life of unspeakable cruelty, and the slow unraveling stacks suffering on top of horror. The children soon discover their mother's story is their own. Her deathbed wish forces them to look into the eyes of their long-lost father and brother and perhaps forgive. Beautifully shot, the film is based on a stage play but is delivered more as a poem on family, war, and finding peace in the unspeakable.

Saturday, March 19, 6pm, Alamo Ritz 1

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