Omnipresent
(Bulgaria, 120 min.)
Written and directed by Ilian Djevelekov
Starring: Velislav Pavlov, Teodora Duhovnikova,
Vesela Babinova, Anastassia Liutova, Mihail Mutafov
How many cameras does a person walk by every day? The fear
of Big Brother watching over us is a reality that people take for granted.
Government spying might be one thing, since they can only monitor so many
people, but the threat of surveillance is everywhere, as are the inherent
elements of power and control that come with the information gleaned by the
voyeur. Omnipresent, the opening
night film of Toronto’s European Union Film Festival and Bulgaria’s official
entry in this year’s Oscar race for Best Foreign Language Film, explores the destructive
role of the panopticon as one man takes the all-seeing eye of the camera too
far. It’s a chilling morality play on the power of media.
The downfall of Emil (Velislav Pavlov) is evident from the outset of Omnipresent. He sits behind his laptop and clacks away his confession on the keyboard. Lives have been ruined. Reputations have been tarnished. Trust has been violated. Emil admits to breaking many social barriers in an experiment that ran wildly out of control.
He explains that it began innocently, since the
disappearance of precious items from the household of his bedridden father
prompted him to install a small surveillance camera. However, the camera
provides a level of intimacy between the father and son. Even Emil’s mother
doesn’t know about the little lens that connects the family from afar. Emil
enjoys seeing his father in his final days, and he realizes how much a person
can learn about others when they act without any self-consciousness.
Emil expands his little CCTV network across his house and
workspace. He soon has oodles of fresh information, like personal details about
Maria (Vesela Babinova), a love interest at work; his wife’s (Teodora
Duhovnikova) budding lesbian love affair, and the fact that his father-in-law
(who hates him) routinely pees in the bathroom sink and screws the cleaning
lady. Information is a powerful tool and Omnipresent
creates a plugged-in monster out of Emil and his network. He grows at home and
at work, using information shared in private to one-up his co-workers or to
make himself appear a perfect match for Anna, parroting things she says in
passing to colleagues. Everyone loves how he seems to be on the right
brainwave, anticipating their wants and needs while saying all the correct
things and making all the right moves.
Omnipresent shows
how easily a person like Emil can fall into the trap of hyper-connected power.
Each escalation of his invasion into the private lives of others seems
plausible and writer/director Ilian Djevelekov includes ample documentary-style
surveillance footage to keep the drama rooted in reality. So too is the eventual
spiralling out of control of Emil’s operation, since information—particularly
the secrets contained in videos—often eludes damage control once it goes viral
and can’t be contained.
The film presents a bit of a challenge for audiences since
Emil is often difficult to like and one might find it hard to sympathize with
his self-serving intentions. People don’t breach such sacred bonds of trust for
noble reasons, though, and Omnipresent often
works because it presents the audience with the normalization of deviant
behaviour enabled by modern technology. The film is unsettling because it
reminds audiences that technology and surveillance are pervasive realities. Omnipresent is an effect moral fable,
2.0 style.
Omnipresent screens at the European Union Film Festival in Toronto at The Royal on Thursday, Nov 8 at 8:30 PM and at the Ottawa EUFF on Monday, Nov. 19 at 7:00 PM.
