aralyth’s review published on Letterboxd:
march around the world 2026 | 10/30 | 🇨🇩 Democratic Republic of the Congo
I quite liked this debut feature from Belgian-Congolese director Baloji. Omen explores the scars that tradition leaves on four characters who challenge it in different ways.
Yves-Marina Gnahoua's performance as Mama Mujila was the highlight for me. I would have liked for the film to have spent more time focusing on her character, but what we got was great with the way she changes our perspective over the ninety-minute runtime. I also connected with our first POV character Koffi's story, and the difficulty he has closing the distance that diaspora brings. I could tell that a lot of the cultural references were going right over my (very much not Congolese) head, but the occasional diversions into surreal/mystical territory were interesting (and gorgeous!).