February 4, 2011

I went to the TIFF Lightbox to see Incendies two nights ago. It was 9:00 pm and my hands were frozen from the icy Toronto air. Rubbing them together I went up the huge escalator around the cafe to cinema number 1. A few people dotted the theatre, but essentially I was alone. It is at times like this, sitting in this immense silence, listening to my breath, feeling anticipation; I am transported into the deepest parts of myself. Perhaps this moment's awareness was sparked by what I've been reading. I had Anais Nin's diary with me, something I've been carrying around lately regardless of its hardcover-heaviness (I kind of like this idea of carrying the weight of the words rather than buying an e-reader). Just to side-track: In her last journals there is this tremendous feeling of a woman nearing the end of her life, but also living each moment to the brim, questioning and being aware of her surroundings and especially honesty with her writing. "I live for this journal" she writes, and writing transformed her experience of the world. Her later journals turned into a dialogue with the world itself.
Then the theatre went dark and the movie began. (I really appreciate at TIFF you are not bombarded by commercials, music, and technological garbage that make us unable to feel a sense of calm. Who knew I could find a sense of solace in a movie theatre!!) So the movie started ...
Just to catch some of you up ...
Incendies is a play by Wajdi Mouawad, I saw the English translation (by Linda Gaboriau) Scorched in 2007 at Tarragon, and have never seen a more fully realized, poetic, politically subversive, masterpiece of a play in Canada. Denis Villeneuve was so inspired by this play, calling it a masterpiece, that he decided to make a film by the same name. I've been following Villeneuve for the past while with all of the hype over his oscar nomination, and the opening of the movie to mainstream theatres. Check out Jian Ghomeshi's interview with him on Q: www.cbc.ca/arts/film/story/2010/12/14/denis-villeneuve.html
He speaks about how in order to make the film, he had to let go of a lot of poetry in the play. The story can be told through image. The story is about twins dealing with the death of their mother, and given the task of having to find their father and brother (they did not know they had a brother until the notary gave them a letter from their mother to go and find him). The play brings them to a fictional country, with a warring past. Villeneuve was inspired to make the film because of what it was talking about: finding a liberation from the cycles of violence that encroach on a family. As the film began, I was immediately drawn in, it has a style and an authenticity that is rare in cinema, and is unlike anything I have seen before.
My heart was pounding and it was a painfully beautiful account of the search for origin and truth. Even though the film does stay true to this idea of letting go of the cycles of violence - facing the hard truth, it was lacking in something the play gave me. The play left me with a different feeling when it was over, a release, something light swept over when I left the theatre. This lightness is embodied in the final lines of the play when the mother, Nawal, speaks through a letter to her children:
Why didn't I tell you?
There are truths that can only be revealed when they have been
discovered.
You opened the envelope, you broke the silence
Engrave my name on the stone
And place the stone on my grave.
your mother.

Simon: Janine, let me hear her silence.

JANINE and SIMON listen to their mother's silence.
Torrential rain.
The end.
(Wajdi Mouawad p83 "Scorched")

Rain pours on the stage in the moment that the twins are now given permission to bury their mother and place her body facing the sun. This moment that happened in the theatre is one of the reasons that I have devoted my life to making theatre and working in the theatre. When you are surrounded by an audience, waiting for the final words to be spoken live on the stage there is a sense of urgency, immediacy, and truth. This moment at the end of Scorched can never be recaptured in film because it is a moment that involves a communal cleansing for the audience and for the characters themselves. It is a release for us all. So when I left the movie Incendies I felt blessed to have been a witness to this incredible adaptation of an epic story, but I yearned to have some kind of release like I did in the theatre while the rain poured from the skies of the Tarragon ...