Omar (Hany Abu-Assad, 2013): Palestine

Reviewed by Johanna Carlsson at Santa Barbara International Film Festival 2014

Omar is a movie directed by Hany Abu-Assad, an Israeli man who has done a several movies before. This is a movie according to the website IMDB belonging to Drama and Thriller. And that is pretty much exactly how I would have described it. It pictures a possible contemporary situation in Palestine today. The image you get from the movie is one where there is a society with hard guarding, fear, anger and a strong desire to rebel against the rulers. Omar evoke a reaction in me and I do believe this is a movie worth seeing.

The movie is about a guy named Omar (played by Adam Bakri). In the beginning we get to know that he is in love with a girl named Nadja (played by Leem Lubany). Almost every day he climbs over a high wall which is separating him from Nadja. He gives her letters that he has been writing and they talk about their future. Nadja is the sister to one of Omar’s best friends Tarek (played by Eyad Hourani) and Omar wants to ask Tarek for his promotion for him to marry Najda.

Omar, Tarek and one of their childhood friends Amjad (played by Samer Bisharat) have a strong wish to change the situation within the country. They are freedom fighters and want to fight the Israeli military. They are planning for an operation against the military and they put it in to practice. But something went wrong and Omar ends up in an Israeli prison. How is he now going to marry Nadja and what will happen with their plans to fight for freedom against the military?

As I wrote in the beginning, this movie evokes a reaction in me. Even thou I do not have experience of war and an unsecure living, I can somehow understand how it could be. You hear sounds how the military are shooting and bombing. It is hard to imagine how it would be to live in a society where you do not know what is going to happen and you have to be afraid. Even if I want to understands this. I liked how they picture a scenario that could have happened because it made it more real and it contributes to a stronger believe in the movie. For me it is always more touching when I know that it is something that have happened or could happen.

You can sense that the director have worked hard with this because it is a well done movie. I liked the actors playing in the movie. They played natural and it did not felt forced and unreal. They succeeded in making the environment truthful by filming it where the story took place. They used sound effect so that you could hear what was going in even thou you did not saw it. One example of this is something I wrote above, you could hear shoots, bombs and sirens.

I liked the movie overall. There is one thing that disturbed me a little bit but I do not want to reveal it because I believe this is a movie you should go and see yourself!