Al's Omniflick: Omar

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Omar

**Spoiler alert** Dir. Hany Abu-Assad. Starring: Adam Bakri.

Director of the acclaimed Paradise Now, Hany Abu-Assad helms another taut, powerful drama. Set in Palastine and Israel, Omar tells the story of a young, Palestinian man who belongs to a violent, anti-Israel group made up of two of his closest friends. Omar, the film's namesake, falls in love with his friend's--also a co-cospirator--sister; a passion frowned upon by said friend. In order to meet with his comrades-in-arms and to see the woman he loves, Omar scales the concrete barrier separating Israel from Palestine daily and sometimes risks a bullet in doing so. He is often wily enough to escape the Israeli troops who are hot on his heels.

The story takes a sinister turn when Omar and his two friends plan a shooting of an Israeli soldier. He is immediately tagged as a suspect and his harrassed by law enforcement. One such Israeli operative is a Palestinian turn-coat who betrays Omar while undercover in jail.

Enduring brutal torture, Omar refuses to expose his friend and instead leads the police on a wild goose chase,convincing them he will help deliver the killer. Omar also runs afoul of his countrymen as he is accused of being an informant for the enemy. Accessory to a murder, distrusted by countrymen, harrassed and hunted by Israeli law-enforcement, unable to marry his girlfriend and leave the country, Omar finds himself in an impossible imbroglio.

The film is never less than gripping and Abu-Assad's anti-hero is someone the viewer can be sympathetic to if his actions cannot be totally condoned. Adam Bakri shows us Omar's complicated colors and his fierce determination to resist Israeli oppression. A very physical performance as well as an emotional one, Bakri demonstrates his action-actor bona fides in a thrilling sequence involving a cat-and-mouse flight from Israeli authorities through narrow streets and over roof-tops. We're drawn into the story immediately and held fast with Abu-Assad's mastery of narrative and characters.

Omar was an Oscar contender for Best Foreign Film at this year's ceremony and it was a worthy competitor to excellent, fellow nominees like The Great Beauty and The Hunt. I'm sure we can expect more amazing efforts from Abu-Assad in the future.

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On DVD

Fury (1936)

Director: Fritz Lang

Though we might normally think of the films M and Metropolis when director Fritz Lang becomes the topic of conversation, less known is the legendary director's work in Hollywood. Having fled the ever-growing menace of Nazi Germany for America in the early 1930s', Lang eventually found himself under contract for MGM.

Though his work in Hollywood is very uneven, one standout is Fury, from 1936. Starring Spencer Tracy and Sylvia Sydney, the film's condemnation of mob justice seems spectacularly daring now, considering lynching was still a reality in Depression-era America. We don't see one black person in the film entire but we know precisely for whom Lang film is sympathetic.

Spencer Tracy plays Joe Wilson, who is arrested in a small town while en route to meet his fiance, Katherine (Sylvia Sydney). Suspected of being part of a kidnapping of a little girl, Wilson is arrested on the flimsiest evidence. While he sits in cell; angry and indignant, Katherine is puzzled as to why her fiance hasn't arrived at their prearranged meeting place.

But Wilson's fortunes take a darker and more dangerous turn when a mob--already on edge--is roused to anger. Egging one another on, the mob moves on the jailhouse where Wilson is being held. As the angry gathering becomes a mass, drawing citizens of the town into their swelling numbers, a lynch-mob begins to form. The sheriff, determined to see due process take its course, refuses their forceful demands. Becoming angrier and angrier and bolder and bolder, the crowd storms the jail, overwhelming the sheriff and his deputies. Unable to unlock the cell doors to reach Wilson, the mob sets the jailhouse ablaze as an alternate method of lynching.

Katherine, having arrived on the scene, faints when she sees flames engulf the cell where her fiance is held.

In spite of the mob acting as a faceless entity, its principle members are brought to trial though the town and the defendants maintain a conspiracy of silence, hoping to escape convictions and censure.

A sure acquittal seems imminent until damning evidence assures their guilt. When the majority of the members receive death sentences, Wilson turns up at his brothers, having survived the fire. Knowing the public is unaware of his survival, he vows to stay in hiding to ensure the mob conspirators are executed.

The scene where Katherine, nearly insane from grief, comes face to face with Joe is a powerful moment in the film. As she slowly recovers from her state, she realizes Joe's vindictive determination to see the mob hang is in itself a great injustice.

The story climaxes during a stirring courtroom scene that brings the fascinating story to a close.

I would have never expected Hollywood to make a statement as powerful as Fury made in 1936. Given the fact that lynchings in America at the time went unpunished, the movie railed bravely, in spite of the main character being white rather than black, against what was then the status quo. The Oxbow Incident would make a similar and commensurately powerful statement seven years later.

The film's willingness to peer into the darker side of American life could be partly attributed to Lang, who co-wrote the story and who was no stranger to exploring the darker side of humanity. Having seen evil flower in his home country, it makes sense Lang would choose to tell this story.

Spencer Tracy and Sylvia Sydney give wonderful, emotionally layered performances. Katherine's near descent into madness is depicted touchingly by Sydney. To see Tracy's mild-mannered Wilson become angry and vengeful is heartbreaking.

Even watching Lang's film on a small screen does little to diminish its power. Weeks after the viewing, I still can't shake its indelible images or its angry indictment of one of America's great crimes. One couldn't devise a better title than one it was given eighty years ago. Fury indeed.