At first glance, “Omen” appears to be another entry in the long tradition of immigrant narratives dedicated to the old adage that you can’t go home again. Returning to the country of his birth, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Belgian resident Koffi (Marc Zinga) finds himself not just a stranger in a strange land, but a pariah in his own family. But things are more nuanced than that in this hazy, head-turning first feature from Belgian-Congolese rapper-turned-filmmaker Baloji: The deeper it delves into and across Koffi’s tortured family history, the clearer it becomes that his homeland was never a home to him at all. In “Omen,” cultural tradition is as much a force in dividing families as the gentrifying pull of the west, though Baloji lets viewers draw their own political conclusions amid a mist of vividly realized folklore.
A boldly outward-looking pick from Belgium as...
A boldly outward-looking pick from Belgium as...
- 12/8/2023
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
Baloji, the Belgian-Congolese rapper, explores a familiar set of themes with an artful and impressionistic touch in his directorial debut Omen (Augure).
Premiering in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival, the magical-realist drama tackles displacement and belonging through four characters who’ve been ostracized by their communities. The musician pulls from his personal experiences and uses a visual language honed in his short films, like 2018’s Zombies, to craft a beguiling tale.
The journey begins with Koffi (Marc Zinga), a young Congolese man living in Europe with his white fiancée Alice (Lucie Debay). We see him preparing for an upcoming trip to Democratic Republic of Congo, where he hopes to amend his relationship with his family. Koffi’s birthmark — a large Rorschach-esque blot — frightened his mother, Mujila (a sharp Yves-Marina Gnahoua), when he came out of the womb. She labeled him a sorcerer and sent him to Europe.
Premiering in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival, the magical-realist drama tackles displacement and belonging through four characters who’ve been ostracized by their communities. The musician pulls from his personal experiences and uses a visual language honed in his short films, like 2018’s Zombies, to craft a beguiling tale.
The journey begins with Koffi (Marc Zinga), a young Congolese man living in Europe with his white fiancée Alice (Lucie Debay). We see him preparing for an upcoming trip to Democratic Republic of Congo, where he hopes to amend his relationship with his family. Koffi’s birthmark — a large Rorschach-esque blot — frightened his mother, Mujila (a sharp Yves-Marina Gnahoua), when he came out of the womb. She labeled him a sorcerer and sent him to Europe.
- 5/24/2023
- by Lovia Gyarkye
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
It’s been over a decade since Greece’s government-debt crisis first bit down — perhaps the sharpest national crunch to happen in the immediate aftermath of the 2007-08 global financial meltdown. And so, in the way of things, it’s been about a decade since class disparity, economic distress and social inequality have surfaced among the primary themes of Greek cinema’s arthouse output. It makes Michalis Konstantatos’ icily controlled sophomore feature, “All the Pretty Little Horses,” which fits squarely in that tradition, feel both mature and slightly out-of-time: a well-made, deeply embedded report from the exhausted end of the last crisis, while we’re in the teething stages of a whole new one.
Unlocking its secrets only gradually, the film begins with scenes of seemingly ordinary, bourgeois life in an expensive-looking modernist-minimalist home in rural Greece. Aliki (Yota Argyropoulou) goes for a morning run in the forested hills nearby,...
Unlocking its secrets only gradually, the film begins with scenes of seemingly ordinary, bourgeois life in an expensive-looking modernist-minimalist home in rural Greece. Aliki (Yota Argyropoulou) goes for a morning run in the forested hills nearby,...
- 8/19/2020
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
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