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It was 1987, I was seven. I remember coming to Australia as a strange, dream-like adventure. On the plane over I mistakenly ate some pork (prohibited to Muslims) and promptly threw up. In hindsight that was quite a poignant moment that anticipates the themes of Omission: the lures and stresses of assimilation.
Please find answers, or at least, sincere attempts at answers, to the questions that people have asked us.
Questions
What’s this film about, in one sentence?
What’s the film about, in four paragraphs?
Who is the film about?
What are the problems of assimilation in Omission?
What’s up with the weird/nothing ending?
Why is the climax so violent?
Is Monir a monster?
Does Rajun find the money or steal It?
What is this film not about?
What’s this film about, in one sentence?
Omission is a short film about a Bengali immigrant father and his family’s struggle to assimilate and survive in a new culture.
What’s the film about, in four paragraphs?
The film is about the life of a Bengali immigrant family and the strains and hurdles of assimilation.
I’m interested in my father’s generation of immigrants. These aliens are formed in the strong community and family based cultures of the sub-continent. They then, to better their lives, move to a deeply individualist country. One that is inhospitable to their previous way of being. I find the problems that come out of this exodus and resettlement to be a centre of significant drama.
The film is about Monir’s realisation of how different the world he has come to is, and how he must change as a person to get along in it. It’s about who he is as a man, and how he should live his life.
It is also about documenting how this family works and how isolated they, like most immigrant families, are. Their key goal is to persist, to survive, even through the most terrible hardships. I’m interested in continuence.
Of course the film is about this entire family, but it’s prime concern is Monir. The first two thirds of the film studies the family and how it works. But what we are interested in is how Monir reacts to the climactic moment.
I’m interested in the character of Rajun, but he is not the primary protagonist. It is enough that in the scene subsequent to the climactic scene we know that Rajun is in his room and most likely OK.
What are the problems of assimilation in Omission?
The film explores, and the characters suffer through the problems of assimilation on three layers:
- Outside
Migrants have to change some fundamental aspects of their relationship with society when they come here. This is particularly difficult for immigrants who come from a collectivist, family oriented, stratified cultures. What they’re faced with is a individualists philosophy which causes severe schisms in their character. Monir drives a cab here but perhaps back in Bangladesh he was a doctor, or a journalist, or a financial controller? Beena helps her husband at work and drives him there. Would she have learnt to drive in Bangladesh? Most likely not. Rajun has to reconcile his freer Western self with the Bengali expectations at home. All of these schisms create difficulties that the characters have to navigate and are very interesting dramatically. - In the Home
This is a deeper layer which is rarely seen from the outside. Here most immigrant try to stablise their lives and keep the norms, values, and relations of the old world. But the pressures of assimilation inevitably occur and often tear families apart. How Monir disciplines his son, Beena’s autonomy, the way Beena reports on Rajun are all ways of being that comes under intense pressure from the new way of doing things that exist outside of the home. Some of the deepest, most punishing ruptures happend at this layer. The extreme level of violence that he uses is a signifier of that. - Inside the Self
The deepest layer however, and the subject of nearly all great art is within a single character and how that character understands and explains his own consciousness. We follow Monir at the end of the film to see what affects these schismatic circumstances he finds himself in has on who he thinks he is and how he should live his life. Monir is under an intense gaze, not only from us the viewers, but also from within. As his idea of what right and wrong is, what it means to be a father and husband and man come under question he explodes and struggles towards some kind of silent acceptance. He doesn’t solve his problems but he clearly becomes aware of them. There are many migrants walking amongst us who are in similar situations of turbulence.
What’s up with the weird/nothing ending?
The ending is subtle, but there is a lot of meaning packed into it.
- Disorientation
Monir is disoriented by his circumstances, just as the traveller is disorientated. Unlike the traveller, Monir, and immigrant, doesn’t have any option to get out his situation. I think this is one thing that makes him laugh. - Persisting
The central purpose of an immigrant is to get settled, create a new life, and to persist. I think another reason that Monir smiles is that he knows that even through the worst of it, life has to go on for him and his family. That there is no quitting, and how funny the world is, and how strange existence itself is. - Hands
The concentration on his hands is a reference back to the concept that he uses his hands to support his family by working, but also to hurt his family, as when he hits Rajun. - Tone and Insinuation
The short film form, like the short story form is a highly specialised, constrained form with it’s own essential character. The medium does not allow for narrative closure. Ending a story neatly feels cliched, simplistic and worst of all, unrealistic. Monir is not ready to completely face what he has done let alone do something about it. It would be tacky for their to be a expected, predictable resolution to this film. There is some kind of realisation in Monir and for now, for this film, that is enough. Some of the most significant changes in life happen in the smallest ways. - Symbols
There are a complex network of symbols in the last third of the film. As an example, in the last two scenes we emerge slowly out of Monir’s darkness, visually his driving at night, into the light. There is a feeling of hopefulness and continuity. There are others symbols threaded into the film but I’d be spoiling the fun if I gave it all away!
We don’t like violence. Here’s why it’s there:
- The story is based upon a true occurrence that was related to me. The level of violence depicted respects the level of violence that actually happened.
- Although the level of violence is extreme even by Bangladeshi norms, this kind of violence does happen and is often accepted in Bengali culture. This needs to authentically realised in the film.
- The extreme climax is necessary to create the right amount of dramatic weight to set up for the scenes that follow and their flow and pacing. The extreme climax creates the heaviness that is required for the last third to be suspenseful. The audience is now coaxed into searching for some kind of meaning, or reaction in the last scenes because of the horror of what’s come before.
Monir truly loves Rajun, you can see that when he looks down from the office whilst working, you can see it when he tells Rajun to study, you can see it when his hands rest on the door handle; you can see it in the sacrifices that he makes for his family. These are subtle but clear signs of his love. He is a character who has to suppress his emotions so that he can play the role that is expected of him but in this new culture that role is under attack and his realisation of that is one of the central threads of the film. These aren’t excuses for what Monir does, but he is a real human being with desires, and failings, and successes.
Does Rajun find the money or steal It?
The film is not clear on this point. The camera does not clearly see where Rajun gets the money from in the arcade.
Essentially it doesn’t matter whether he finds the money or steals it. What Monir does and the reasons he does is largely dependent on deeper character and social factors.
Although the film has violence in it, the film isn’t primarly about violence. The film is also not about child abuse, in that, I have nothing new to say about those subjects.
Posted 1 year ago
