Keswick Film Club - Omar

Synopsis

Set around the wall between Palestine and Israel, the wall is used to show both the political divide and the gap between two lovers. Omar is willing to climb the wall at night, dodging the Israeli sentries to carry love letters to his girlfriend, but is he also involved in political sabotage as well? And Omar has bigger problems than worrying about what we think he might be doing; the Israelis are also on his trail…

This is the second film that director Hany Abu-Assad has had nominated for best Foreign film at the Oscars. In the first - 'Paradise Now' (2005) - his protagonists are would-be suicide bombers who are shown as ordinary people in their daily lives. Here too, we see Omar more as a lover than a terrorist. Abu-Assad is as interested in what makes people tick as he is in the horrors of the Middle East conflict; Omar's divided loyalties force us to examine what he is going through as a central tenet of this political thriller.