A Palestinian resistance fighter falls in love with a girl on the opposite side of the West Bank Wall in this romance drama that operates as a deft, noose-tightening thriller when he is captured by Israeli authorities and forced to become an informant.
Review #2,812
Dir. Hany Abu-Assad
2013 | Palestine | Drama, Romance, Thriller | 98 min | 2.35:1 | Arabic & Hebrew
M18 (passed clean) for mature content and coarse language
Cast: Adam Bakri, Waleed Zuaiter, Leem Lubany
Plot: A young Palestinian freedom fighter agrees to work as an informant after he’s tricked into an admission of guilt by association in the wake of an Israeli soldier’s killing.
Awards: Won Un Certain Regard Award – Special Jury Prize (Cannes); Nom. for Best Foreign Language Film (Oscars)
International Sales: The Match Factory
Accessibility Index
Subject Matter: Moderate – Loyalty & Betrayal; Israel-Palestine Issue; Love Under Duress
Narrative Style: Slightly Complex
Pace: Normal
Audience Type: Slightly Arthouse
Viewed: Netflix
Spoilers: No
Omar is a Palestinian baker-cum-resistance fighter who, in the opening scene, scales the West Bank Wall to meet Nadia, a girl whom he is infatuated with.
But when Omar is caught by the Israeli authorities, he has no choice but to become an informant to avoid being sentenced to life in prison. The key target: Nadia’s brother, who is wanted for the murder of an Israeli soldier.
Deception, loyalties and love become intertwined and it is to the credit of writer-director Hany Abu-Assad’s deft screenplay that it all plays out to a dead knot that won’t budge.
Tensions are wrung to the fullest as the noose gets metaphorically tightened in this thriller that works quite effectively as a romance drama.
It is an interesting film tonally because, on the one hand, you have the lovey-dovey aspects which are not alien to us from a genre perspective.
“Every day we wait is another day of occupation.”
On the other hand, the dark, all-consuming shadows of the Israel-Palestinian conflict serve a harsh reality, one that is all too familiar to us, perhaps much more so today (with the ongoing and extremely visible Palestinian genocide) than in 2013 when the film was released.
Although a fictive work, Omar embodies the dreams and realities of many Palestinians who just want to lead a normal life and build a hopeful future.
Young, resilient and resourceful, the protagonist however doesn’t live in such a world—he will need to make very, very difficult decisions. It all careens into a denouement that would give, say, La haine (1995) a run for its money.
In a year with Paolo Sorrentino’s The Great Beauty and Thomas Vinterberg’s The Hunt, Omar managed to snag an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film for Palestine.
One wonders if it had been made today, could it have won? The Academy loves to make moral statements—and I’m sure they will want to be on the right side of history.
Grade: B+
Trailer:
Eternality Tan 