OMAR is a complex film balancing a love-story involving the eponymous central character (Adam Bakri), his girlfriend Nadia (Leem Lubany), and his close friends Tarek (Ilyad Hoorani) and Amjad (Samer Basharat). All three young men are Palestinian freedom fighters, committed to the cause of fighting the Israelis, but this does not prevent them from becoming personally involved in a complicated lover-affair. However director Hany Abu-Assad overlays this story with another plot, in which Omar is tricked by Israeli agent Rami (Maleed Zuaiter) into informing on his Palestianian cohorts. The film's love-story elements have a distinct ROMEO AND JULIET feel about them, especially when Omar has to keep crossing into forbidden territory to see Nadia, running the perpetual risk of capture by Israeli soldiers. And just as in Shakespeare's play, director Abu-Assad suggests that the love-affair is doomed, both due to circumstances as well as politics. The torture-scenes in the prison are graphically handled, reminding us of just how brutal life can be, once Omar has been captured, and why he is forced into becoming a traitor. However the film ends with him winning a Pyrrhic victory over his Israeli agent. The film is full of visual reminders of the realities of living in the West Bank: there are continual shots of advertisements promising an ideal world (one, in English, talks about reconciliation, while another advertises a well-known brand of men's suits, with a blonde-haired model) that contrast starkly with the scenes of destruction in which the Palestianians reside. The chase-sequences lead us on a labyrinthine journey through this world; every corridor, it seems, conceals freedom-fighters desperate to continue the struggle. Some of the plot-lines in OMAR might seem familiar, but the material is handled in a harsh, uncompromising manner. The film fully deserves its Oscar nomination.
Review of Omar
