Day: February 7, 2017

REVIEW: La Femme et la TGV [2016]

Jared Mobarak

“I’ve never sent an internet and I never will” While its age-old conceit of a misunderstood curmudgeon discovering joy after being perpetually caught in a cycle of monotony is familiar, Timo von Gunten‘s cutely inspiring La femme et le TGV is in fact based on true events. The woman at its center is Elise (Jane Birkin), a baker left alone after her husband passed on, her son (Mathieu Bisson‘s Pierre) moved away, and her clientele gradually enticed by a cheap German bakery with unbeatable prices. She rides her bike to…

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REVIEW: Silent Nights [2016]

Jared Mobarak

“I live a very hard life” It’s extremely difficult for me to blindly accept a film like Aske Bang‘s Silent Nights on faith. The idea that someone can do bad things—no matter how good he/she is at heart—and continuously be rewarded is a tough sell. But that’s exactly what this look at immigration through a charitable Danish lens attempts. A man may be a saint, but that doesn’t excuse thieving, adultery, or lying with ease. I understand the message comes down to “hard living” and “impossible decisions,” but the film’s…

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REVIEW: Watani: My Homeland [2016]

Jared Mobarak

“I am responsible for destroying my children’s future right now” Out of five Oscar-nominated documentary shorts, four deal with the cost of genocide with three being specifically about today’s Arab refugees. This shouldn’t come as a surprise considering the topic is very much at the forefront of the world’s mind, the internet allowing injustices thousands of miles away appear as though they’re occurring right next door. What sets Marcel Mettelsiefen‘s Watani: My Homeland apart from the other two, however, is that it focuses on the innocents made to endure civil…

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