Omar

Grade: B+

*This review was originally published on Movie Mezzanine.

There is a danger inherent in political cinema that plagues a vast number of films made within the genre: if the filmmaker tempers personal theories and passionate arguments for the subject at hand, the film can become politically insipid and socially irrelevant; if (s)he uses the film as a platform to voice partisan opinions, it can be dismissed as propaganda. This is particularly pertinent in the case of the long-lasting conflict in the Middle East, where every film, Palestinian or Israeli, has to overcome a set of built-in assumptions before it even reaches the global audience. Hany Abu Assad’s Oscar-nominated Omar is no exception, but it is the rare film that walks the tightrope expertly and finds the right tone of political speech.

Omar follows the titular character, a young Palestinian baker, who routinely scales a wall dividing his village from the Israeli town in which his best friend, Tarek, lives with his family. Omar and Tarek’s younger sister, Nadia, have a blossoming romantic relationship that must remain hidden in the face of religious tradition, but one which they are planning to make official when Omar finally asks her family for her hand. Omar and the hotheaded Tarek spend their free time with a third childhood friend, Amjad, whose small stature and jokester persona set him in stark contrast against Omar and the politically ambitious Tarek. But it is Amjad, who steps up to the occasion when the three of them materialize their thoughtless plan to assassinate an Israeli soldier with a gun shot from afar.

At the hands of an Israeli army that swiftly tracks the offenders down, Omar is detained and ruthlessly tortured and beaten, but not before he tells a wired inmate that “he will never confess.” Taking that statement as his confession, his captors give him two options: serve a 90-year sentence in prison, or turn in Tarek, who is believed by the Israelis to be the shooter. Omar, looking for a chance at redemption and a life with Nadia, makes the obvious pick; but when out of prison, he conspires with his friends to ambush the Israeli soldiers that come after them. The personal and political consequences of Omar’s decision intertwine with and cross-impact the complications of his relationship with Nadia. He is forced both to prove to her and the rest of the community that his early release is not a sign of allegiance to Israelis, and to fight off Amjad’s interest in Nadia, which may not be as unrequited as Omar originally believes.