OMEN (Melbourne IFF 2023) – Review by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas

Mononymous contemporary renaissance man Baloji’s career straddles music, poetry and filmmaking. In the case of the latter, while his acting experience stems back to 2011, as a director his earlier short films Peau de Chagrin/Bleu de Nuit (2018), Kaniama Show (2018) and Zombies (2019) granted him the experience required to tackle his feature film directorial debut, Omen. Winning the Un Certain Regard New Prize at Cannes this year, his vibrant, electrifying vision of diasporic culture shock reveals Baloji to be as fearless as he is original.

Loosely mimicking the filmmaker’s own status as a Congolese-born Belgian immigrant, Omen follows Koffi (Marc Zinga) who returns to his home country with his pregnant white partner Alice (Lucie Debay) with the hope of repairing his tense, bitter relationship with his parents. Upon arrival, however, he quickly learns that superstition is still rife amongst his family, and when he has a nosebleed while holding an infant nephew, the family – and particularly his stern matriarch mother – react strongly, making both Koffi and Alice wonder if returning was the right thing to do. Woven into the story of Koffi’s story is that of Paco (Marcel Otete Kabeya), a young gang leader mourning the loss of his little sister and drawn into violent street war hostilities.

So much of the experience of watching Omen, however, is less about the story and more to do with how Baloji chooses to tell it. Brought to life with dazzling, dizzying costumes, the film’s magic realism aspects and affection for the fantastic lend the story an emotional connective tissue that binds its seemingly disparate stories together. Not everything works necessarily, but this feels neither here nor there when weighed up against the enormous excitement this film generates around Baloji’s gleeful delight in taking real risks. For a debut feature, Omen is a remarkable accomplishment and a thrilling glimpse into the work of a truly visionary filmmaker who no doubt has many more films to come.

NOTE: Without actors and writers, we wouldn’t have movies. This review was written during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes in the United States, and the author of this review supports them unequivocally.