Omen

Saw this at the 2023 filmfestival Ghant (Belgium). This movie lacks a comprehensible and consistent story. Instead, it treats us on a series of beautiful scenes with folkloristic events, colorful dresses for the occasions, family traditions, and local customs, centering around superstition and witchcraft and how to deal with that. Bear in mind that witchcraft is a vehicle to explain everything that deviates from the norm. The best example is Koffi's bloody nose dripping on a baby, after which the baby is declared cursed, followed by a ritual to avert alleged ill effects (luckily without really harming Koffi, but it looked dangerous).

Nice scenes, a feast to watch (most of them), but it seems a bit artificially sequenced around the trip by Koffi with Clara, his pregnant white wife. They intend to pay respect to Koffi's family he did not see in many years, and to pay the dowry to his mother. In the beginning of the story, Clara is expecting a twin (due date 4 month to go). Some months later we see the couple carrying a black and a white child, giving rise to some dubious remarks from his uncle. Apparently, the fact that these two babies have different colors, carries a lot of implicit meanings (beyond our understanding, we can only guess). The obvious time jump four months ahead is not explained; there is no reason for them to have stayed that long, so I'm confused.

Clearly, not everyone in Koffi's family welcomes the couple, apparently something that can be explained from his past as a child, not wished by his mother who went at great length to get rid of the unborn baby. Apart from his youth, leaving Congo did not help to improve things (I think), and bringing a white pregnant woman with him did not do much good either. Family relationships are not easily restored merely by trying and despite good intentions. The turbulent past cannot be wiped out.

Baloji Tshiani's approach on it's unconventional narrative structure and style can be a turn off for majority of the views but Tshiani's direction on it's unconventional narrative, atmosphere, and style was an interesting and fascinating outlook on the themes about failures to reconnect, folklore, rituals and cultures with interesting colorful productions, atmospheres, camerawork, musical soundtrack, and character dynamics.

Kinshasa culture is well-explored throughout the narrative, and Tshiani's approach to the characters, themes, and concepts are quite fascinating to explore. With good performances and structures, even with it's short run-time, it treats us with lots of interesting and engaging aspects that I appreciate.

Omen offers a lot if you let it. Baloji brings a consistent care and engagement in his framework and direction that draws you in, even when you may be sort of circling around what exactly is this story trying to tell me. Because there are threads that unfurl hither and yon. At its heart there resonates a struggle in familial indentities that I presume most viewers can or may in one way or another draw parallels to their own lives. We all come from somewhere, and who we become and how can matter. Beyond the story the rich visuals ground the screen whether kinetic street theater in rhythmic brass and drums, pseudo wrestling or quiet family dinner table convo. Other sequences bring a lure of color, light and curiosity if it is a dream sequence, a memory or ? In the end Baloji transports us to places at once foreign and familiar with quiet confidence and engaging choices.

The film has an original tone in keeping with its setting in the Congo, as well as with its theme of beliefs and superstitions, which are a mixture of Christian superstitions and local tribal beliefs and superstitions. As usual, superstitions only impress those who believe, and the film seems artificially dramatized. Even if our character suffers greatly from it. But it has to be said that the script integrates all these elements perfectly. One regret as a viewer is that Marc Zinga's wife has no place in the second half of the film.

Nonetheless, the film has its original features, in particular the atmosphere, the settings of the places where it takes place in the Congo, and the various cultural elements it brings to the fore. It's worth noting that it's not an advertisement at all, but rather a repudiation of this country, where people don't seem to have any free will and, above all, are caught up in the shackles of superstition.

Nonetheless, the film has a real signature and hysteresis.

I was unprepared to see the film, but I love Africa in its actual art expressions. With some white and black friends we had the occasion to see the film and discuss it with Baloji himself. It impressed most of us. Our black friends recognised a lot of things that happened in their lives or in others' lives. Our white friends realized that there are other dimensions than the pure rational dimension. I Africa you had to accept that there will be always some mystic dimensions, unexplicable in western terms. Even every part was not immediately understood as part of the story, Baloyi tells us about African live that is at the crossways of past and present, tradition and modernity, dream and reality. So the film need a second vision. But we all were blasted by the beautiful photograpy. We all hope to see the next film of Baloji!