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Much of the chatter about this year’s Foreign Language Oscar race is rightly centered on Paolo Sorrentino’s “The Great Beauty,” the lush Italian front-runner with florid photography and echoes of Fellini.
On the grittier side of things is Hany Abu Assad’s nominee “Omar,” an underdog film from Palestine about the eponymous rebel (Adam Bakri) who finds himself caught between fighting oppression and serving as an informant for the prisoner-torturing Israeli intelligence agency. The follow-up to Abu Assad’s controversial “Paradise Now,” “Omar” wears its politics on its sleeve while deeply exploring its hero’s tortured psyche.
The film’s opening (and recurring) shot is baldly symbolic, with Omar climbing over a wall from one territory to another, as he visits his fellow Palestinian renegades, Tarek (Iyad Hoorani) and Amjad (Samer Bisharat), as well as Tarek’s sister, Nadia (Leem Lubany), whom Omar hopes to marry. With believable romance running straight down its center, “Omar” chronicles the impossible duality of being loyal to a native cause and being enslaved, sometimes literally, by draconian occupiers.
Bakri’s contribution as Abu Assad’s lead proves utterly invaluable, as this largely unknown actor has magnetic, movie-star looks, which, rather than distract from his character’s plausibility, underscore the disfiguring, hideous physical hardships he endures. Bakri is also a fine, heartbreaking actor, who brings great weight to Omar’s struggles on the fronts of friendship, love, ideals and unspoken responsibility.
On a technical level, Abu Assad often stages dazzling chases through Palestinian streets, his camera whizzing down narrow alleys and tirelessly keeping up with Omar as he repeatedly evades Israeli officials on foot. It’s virtuoso guerilla cinematography. Still, “Omar” stumbles as it begins to dash toward its finale, with Abu Assad letting his adoration of cathartic, damn-the-man narratives trump the nuances of his story’s personal and cultural nuances. The viewer is left with the sense that this otherwise potently topical rock-and-a-hard-place film had an urge to be, in a word, “cool,” which, despite certain beliefs, is not synonymous with rebellious.
Omar
NR
Three reels out of four
Opens tomorrow at the Ritz at the Bourse
Recommended Rental
Gravity
PG-13
Available Tuesday
Sadly, if you missed “Gravity” on the big screen in Imax 3-D, you aren’t going to enjoy the full scope of Alfonso Cuarón’s jaw-dropping, game-changing creation. But that doesn’t mean you can’t still marvel at this gem of a space opera, which somehow manages to be both avant garde and populist at once. Anchored by an Oscar-nominated performance from Sandra Bullock, the movie is an existential survivalist trip, one that gets down to the bone marrow of being human.
Contact the South Philly Review at editor@southphillyreview.com.
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