Omar – Review by Frank L.
Director: Hany Abu-Assad
Writer: Hany Abu-Assad
Stars: Adam Bakri, Leem Lubany, Iyad Hoorani

Abu-Assad’s ‘Paradise Now’ won a Golden Globe for best foreign film in 2006, and was also nominated for an Academy award in the same category. It told the story of two men preparing a suicide attack. Abu-Assad said that “politicians want to see it as black and white, good and evil, and art wants to see it as a human thing”. The same sentiment underlies Omar which relates the story of three Palestinian childhood friends Omar, Tarek and Amjad who in varying degrees, wish to confront the occupation of the West Bank. Omar is an ordinary joe-soap who is a baker. His friend Tarek is a committed militant against the occupation.

Omar is infatuated by Tarek’s sister, Nadia. The occupying forces, in a display of bullying and abasement, humiliate Omar. He becomes more militant but his infatuation with Nadia remains constant. Amjad is a hanger-on to his two friends. He is blessed with seven not very beautiful sisters, which is a cross he must bear! All of these humans exist in the extraordinary world that is the West Bank, which is a highly conflicted place to state the obvious. Notwithstanding any political acts of violence that the three men carry out, they are humans who live ordinary lives. So Abu-Assad continues the narrative which he explained in relation to Paradise Now of the human strengths and needs of the participants.

The opening scene of Omar scaling the separation barrier throws the viewer immediately into the unfamiliar world of a community divided by a physical barrier but less than 100 miles away on this island such a barrier is part of the everyday part of human existence. So it ought not be that unfamiliar sadly. The domestic scenes such as looking at a small apartment where Omar and Nadia may live places them firmly in the arena of aspirations. However the politics of the occupation of the West Bank intrudes deeply into their lives as a nascent couple and into the lives of the three friends and Nadia. The acting of all the protagonists is impressive particularly Omar (Adam Bakri) who in addition has the advantage of good looks. Each of them finds themselves in dilemmas of immense complexity, but they are each human.

The pressures are unrelenting and intense; each responds differently. The film does not provide much hope, in fact none, to the resolution of the occupation of the West Bank but it underlines the humanity of the people who must live their lives in what is a grotesquely distorted society. They have the desires to love and be loved, live in a home with their children, all very mundane at one level but in somewhere as conflicted as the West Bank, it is a dream. Omar demonstrates how difficult that dream is to achieve.