The Thousands

When Nawal Marwan (Lubna Azabal) dies in Canada, her will instructs her twin children Jeanne (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin) and Simon (Maxim Gaudette) to deliver letters to, respectively, their father and a brother they never knew they had. As they travel to their mother’s homeland, a Lebanon-esque fictional Middle Eastern country, gradually they uncover their mother’s past as a revolutionary during the civil war and, later, a famous political prisoner.

Jeanne is the most sympathetic figure, struggling to reconcile her memories with her mother’s controversial homeland reputation. Simon’s grief manifests as brusque reluctance, but his quest yields the most confronting (but not entirely unsignposted) revelation. If only all episodes of Who Do You Think You Are were this eventful! The letters, when they’re finally read out in voiceover, are subtle yet powerful; the film personalises abstract political turmoil by focusing on love’s power to break seemingly intractable cycles of hatred.

Based on Wajdi Mouawad’s play Scorched, Denis Villeneuve’s Oscar-nominated drama weaves harrowing scenes of past atrocities with fraught, disconnected moments in the present. Villeneuve repeatedly returns to the motif of swimming pools; juxtaposed with the fires of the title, they symbolise hatreds extinguished. And fittingly, Nawal’s key revelation comes in the water.