Incendies (2010).

As a habit a few days back I was looking for a nice film to watch on IMDB. Suddenly, this film about twins came up. I liked the name and started downloading it right away.

I must admit, I had a slight misconception about the storyline. I thought the twins would be of the same sex. Anyway, a few minutes into the film, that ceased to matter.

The plot is stupendously daring. The twist in the end strikes your emotions. It makes you feel the film, especially the character of the mother and Abu Tarek.

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Reading about the Oedipus complex, I wondered why they didn’t make films on it anymore. I mean, I haven’t seen one lately. This one, however, wasn’t exactly about the Oedipus complex, but it was about how unknowingly a hired rapist of the military happens to find out that the one he raped was his mother. To make a film on such a subject, trust me, isn’t a matter of joke.

THE POSTER:

I’ll start from what primarily, rather, on the first go catches the eye: the three dots on the bottom right corner. If you’ve seen the film, you’ll know what that refers to. It’s the tattoo on Abu Tarek’s right leg.

It was significant because the whole film spirals into Abu Tarek. The tattoo becomes important, as the mother as well as the audience realizes that the father and brother of the twins is the same person. The color of the tattoo is thus justified.
The positioning of the tattoo on the bottom righ corner is because of two reasons:
i. Because that was exactly where Abu Tarek had his tattoo.
ii. It signifies the moral fall Abu Tarek. How?  Well, for that you need to have an idea of the Cartesian coordinates. If you separate a grid system into four equal squares (quarters), every quarter, depending on the axis of division will have an identity based on two signs (+ and -). The top right corner would be (+,+), top left (-,+), bottom left (-,-), bottom right (-,+). Now, the three dots in the poster, as you see, has been placed on the bottom right corner (-,+). That’s because, as I look at it, Abu Tarek receives two letters, one from the woman he raped and one from his mother (both being the same person). Now the contents of the first letter doomed his life (hence the –ve sign), and the contents of the second tried to teach him love; broke him; put into him an emotion of grief (+ve sign). As we read from left to right, ergo, chronologically it was the –ve sign that came first, and the +ve followed.

This coincidence (unless it was similarly thought of by the director, which’d definitely give me the jitters) was what drove me to make the poster.

Now, the background: The whole film was set on a backdrop of the Lebanese civil war. I tried to literalize it by using the war scenes from the film on the background.
Three shots are there:
i. Young Abu Tarek while his hair was being cut in an army camp.
ii. The kid whom the mother tries to save, but can’t and is shot. This is the scene where they shoot the kid.
iii. The mother at the war ground after she sees the militants shooting the kid.

(I found out just now that a shot from the same scene as ii was used for the official posters of the film. :-D)

I compiled these shots in a way so that it looks as if Abu Tarek is looking with grief at his mother who is equally broken, with war raging in between them.

Color scheme: The three dots are blood-red in color. Dried blood. Crimson-ish, on a peachy (skin color) background, because that’s how it was. The tattoo was drawn on the skin in blood. The whole story ran across a blood line. It unveiled as the twins went looking for their unknown family.

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As a footnote to all those who haven’t watched the film, this remains an important recommendation. A more daring film wasn’t made in recent years.