Director Watch Podcast Ep. 7 – ‘Incendies’ (Villeneuve, 2010)

Welcome to Director Watch! On this AwardsWatch podcast, co-hosts Ryan McQuade and Jay Ledbetter attempt to breakdown, analyze, and ultimately, get inside the mind of some of cinema’s greatest auteurs. In doing so, they will look at their filmographies, explore what drives them artistically and what makes their decision making process so fascinating. Add in a few silly tangents and a fun game at the end of the episode and you’ve got yourself a podcast we truly hope you love. On episode 7 of the Director Watch Podcast, the guys discuss the first film in their Denis Villeneuve series, Incendies (2010).

As Ryan and Jay said goodbye to Todd Haynes on the last episode, so begins another series talking about one of the biggest directorial names in modern cinema. Over the last fifteen years, Denis Villeneuve has risen the ranks to be compared alongside the names of big budget directors with the likes of Christopher Nolan and Ridley Scott. While he is a fairly recent director, his filmography has led to massive discussions by film fans around the world, and in anticipation for his latest film, Dune Part 2, it made sense for the guys to tackle his work. But before he was making sci-fi spectacles, he made heart wrenching, celebrated indie dramas, which leads us to Incendies, which is a tale about a mother (a deeply committed performance from Lubna Azabal), whose devastating trauma from her past life must be dealt with by her children before she is firmly laid to rest. In this episode, the boys set up their relationship with Villeneuve and his films, their thoughts on this bleak breakout film, the morality and construction of the film’s finale, and whether Radiohead’s music should be used in any film.

You can listen to The AwardsWatch Podcast wherever you stream podcasts, from iTunes, iHeartRadio, Soundcloud, Stitcher, Spotify, Audible, Amazon Music and more.

This podcast runs 1h2m. The guys will be back next week to continue their Denis Villeneuve series with a look at Prisoners. You can stream Prisoners on Netflix as well as rent via iTunes and Amazon Prime rental in preparation for the next episode of Director Watch. Till then, let’s get into it.

Music: MUSICALIFE, from Pond5 (intro) and “B-3” from BoxCat Games Nameless: The Hackers RPG Soundtrack (outro).