10 years of the Incendies
On September 3, 2010, at the Venice International Film Festival, the premiere of the Canadian film "Incendies", directed by Denis Villeneuve, took place within the framework of the non-competition section "Venice Days".
The film "Incendies" is an adaptation of the play of the same name by the Lebanese-Canadian playwright Wajdi Mouawad, written in 2003. This play, based on facts from the biography of the legendary heroine of the Lebanese Civil War (1975 - 1990) Souha Bechara, was staged with great success in many theaters around the world, and even in Russia - at the Moscow theater on Chistye Prudy Et Cetera ...
Denis Villeneuve, who watched the production of the play in Montreal in 2004, was fired up with the idea of ​​adapting it to a film, but realizing his lack of awareness of Arab culture, he decided to remove from the future script any connection to a specific location and a specific historical period. His goal was, as he himself later admitted, to create "a modern story with a sort of Greek tragedy element in it." To a certain extent, he succeeded, since most film critics in their reviews drew parallels between Villeneuve's film and Shakespeare's tragedies.
A month after the premiere in Venice, Denis Villeneuve's film took part in the competition program of the Warsaw International Film Festival, where it was awarded the Grand Prix.
Early the following year, 2011, the film "Incendies" was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. But here the victory was awarded to the Danish film "Hævnen (In a Better World)" by Susanne Bier.
In the same 2011, Denis Villeneuve's film competed for the Italian David di Donatello Prize in the Best Foreign Film nomination, but here the victory went to another film, namely the rather average film by Clint Eastwood "Hereafter". However, such outstanding films as "Inception" by Christopher Nolan, "The Social Network" by David Fincher, "Black Swan" by Darren Aronofsky found themselves in the same position of those deprived of this award. But at home, in Canada, Villeneuve's film received 8 national film Genie Awards.
In 2012, "Incendies" attempted to win the hearts of the British Film Academy and win the BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Language Film. But here, too, the prize went to the Spanish film "La piel que habito (The Skin I Live In)" by Pedro AlmodĂłvar. Finally, in the same 2012, the film "Incendies" received a nomination for the French CĂ©sar Awards, but the French Film Academy also gave preference to another film - the film by the Iranian director Asghar Farhadi "Jodaeiye Nader az Simin (A Separation)". However, the French filmmakers were directly involved in the creation of this film. So the decision of the French film academics was quite predictable.
Roger Ebert, who gave the film 3.5 stars out of 4, wrote in his review that "This is a plot for a thriller, really, and Denis Villeneuve's Oscar-nominated "Incendies" doesn't shy away from that truth. But it wants to be much more than a thriller and succeeds in demonstrating how senseless and futile it is to hate others because of their religion. Most 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."
The financial successes of Denis Villeneuve's picture may not have been very grandiose, but quite convincing: with a budget of $ 6.5 million, its box office grossed $ 16 million. But the ratings of viewers who watched the film were very high: 77% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users gave the film ratings from 8 to 10.
With that said, FilmGourmand rated Denis Villeneuve's "Incendies" at 9.104, placing it 135th in the Golden Thousand.
