Omphalos, aka 7 splinters in time, is a gritty, neo-noir thriller with a sci-fi twist. Director Gabriel Judet-Weinshel introduces the audience to an anachronistic, avant-garde setting, relying on lighter and darker lenses to distinguish between the past, present and… other. That’s right. Omphalos is a fractured narrative. Think The Butterfly Effect or Memento—but if it were more like Looper and with the ominous presence of True Detective.
The story is carried by a troubled police investigator, Darius Lefaux, who is put on leave by his superior for an unknown incident. Lefaux, visibly disturbed, can’t remember much of his past and is haunted by unusual visions.
His time away from the force is short-lived, however, as he is asked to help investigate the murder of a man who bears an uncanny resemblance to himself. When it appears that he is being targeted by an unknown killer, Lefaux must look into his own history to get the answers he needs.
His investigation leads him to Fyodor Wax, a man who has invented a means for time travel. Wax tells him that a past Lefaux had gone back to help humanity but chose to save the woman he loved instead—splitting himself into seven different versions of Lefaux. Now he needs to go back even further in time to save himself, the woman he loves and the world before time-space collapses and all is lost.
It’s true Judet-Weinshel presents a visually intricate, dystopian world that paces less like movie, and more like fever dream. But Omphalos does, unfortunately, fall into a deus-ex-machina-ian trap by employing a time-travel device to undo all its conflict–robbing the characters of any moral or physical consequence. It sets out to be a lesson in confronting our traumas and the worst parts of our nature, but unsatisfyingly becomes a delusion into how we can deny them altogether.
Omphalos
Sat, Mar 3, 7:15pm, 3B | Mon, Mar 5, 7:15pm, RWC 3 | Wed, Mar 7, 5:05pm, RWC 10 | Fri, Mar 9, 6:45pm, 3B
.Cinequest Review: 'Omphalos'
