OMEN - Mark Reviews Movies

Omen, Utopia Distribution

Follow on Facebook | Follow on Twitter | Become a Patron

Review by Mark Dujsik | April 11, 2024

By all appearances, Koffi (Marc Zinga) is a normal man living an ordinary life. His home is an apartment somewhere in metropolitan Belgium, where he and his pregnant fiancée Alice (Lucie Debay) are eagerly awaiting the birth of twins. Omen, though, is about this man returning to his original home in the Democratic Republic of Congo and how it was never really anything approaching a home for him.

Mononymous writer/director Baloji's film serves as family drama, a commentary on the perils of religious fervor becoming entrenched into society, and a split study of two characters whose backgrounds seem to be similar but whose lives have arrived at distinct destinations. The shared background, essentially, is that both Koffi and Paco (Marcel Otete Kabeya), a young teen or pre-teen who survives in the African country's capital with a gang of similar outcasts, are seen as cursed by those around them.

Koffi was born with a noticeable birthmark on his cheek. That led the more religiously superstitious members of his family to believe he was marked with a sign of the devil, and they treated him according to those beliefs, until Koffi left for Europe and more or less became ostracized from most of his family.

Meanwhile, Paco has a similar birthmark and an even less clear background. All we know is that his sister disappeared and presumably died, and if—as Baloji must be suggesting, since the two characters are the main ones here—Koffi's experience is anything to measure the kid's by, Paco must have been blamed and exiled from his own family. The uncertainty of the specifics adds a layer of mystery that compels us, not to wonder what happened to these two characters, but to note how much of their lives has been defined by the absence of things as vital as family, love, and some sense of who they are outside of how others see them.

The plot follows Koffi as he returns to the DRC, prepared to pay a customary dowry to his father on the occasion of his upcoming wedding. He's met with suspicion by his sisters, insults by a vocal uncle, and complete indifference by his mother Mujila (Yves-Marina Gnahoua). After Koffi's nose starts bleeding, he and Alice are sent away, leaving the two to stay with his sister Tshala (Eliane Umuhire), who left the family because of such attitudes and behavior.

At the same time, Paco's gang gets into a conflict with another one. Violence erupts when the young leader of the rival group steals the only thing Paco has left of his sister.

There is so much pain here, and Baloji uncovers it, not only in our protagonists, but also in Tshala, who wants to remain in her homeland but is increasingly disillusioned with how engrained superstition is in the culture, and even Mujila, who eventually has her attitude and actions toward her son turned against her. Despite the distressing nature of its story, the compassion of Omen becomes its defining characteristic.

Back to Home

Buy Related Products