Category: Film Festival

TIFF15 REVIEW: Dragstrip [2015]

Jared Mobarak

“So hike up your pants and tighten your shoes. We’re going racing soon.” The Toronto International Film festival programmers are selling Daniel Claridge and Pacho Velez‘s short documentary Dragstrip as an “exhilarating blast of raw Americana”, but I’m not sure if it isn’t actually evidence of our affinity with the mundane instead. Shot at the Lebanon Valley Dragway in Upstate New York, the film captures a slice of racing life in static shots aurally filled with the roar of engines and voice of a loudspeaker. We don’t actually see the…

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TIFF15 REVIEW: Sonámbulo [The Sleepwalker] [2015]

Jared Mobarak

“Green, how I want you green.” Animator Theodore Ushev embraces yet another visual style to treat us with at the Toronto International Film Festival. From conté crayon images rotoscoped atop Jafar Panahi in 2012’s Joda to the Cubist/Constructivist homage of 2013’s Gloria Victoria, his latest Sonámbulo [The Sleepwalker] delves into Abstract Expressionism bearing to mind an amalgam of Arshile Gorky‘s painting and Alexander Calder‘s mobile sculptures. It’s all geometric shapes, mostly with curved edges, each dotted as though fabric sewn with seams collaged and brought to life in a gyratory…

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TIFF15 REVIEW: Semele [2015]

Jared Mobarak

“Out of the way, kid” As children we crave time with our parents—especially when quality family outings prove few and far between. The titular Semele (Vasiliki Kokkoliadi) in Myrsini Aristidou‘s short film will do anything to force some face-to-face, even going so far as hitch-hiking her way to the carpentry plant where her father works to acquire his signature on a school form. Mom’s nowhere to be seen and who knows how long it’s been since Semele and Aris (Yannis Stankoglou) were even in the same room together considering a…

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TIFF15 REVIEW: Pojkarna [Girls Lost] [2016]

Jared Mobarak

“Can’t you see it’s me?” Writer/director Alexandra-Therese Keining‘s adaptation of Jessica Schiefuer’s 2011 August Prize-winning (Sweden) young adult novel Pojkarna (translated as The Boys but changed to Girls Lost for international release) is deliciously dark and profoundly vital. It definitely lends itself to the genre with overt metaphors between three female classmates finding themselves budding into women as the flowers within one’s mother’s greenhouse follows suit, but it also possesses an edge that’s easily able to render cliché moot. The whole body swapping cinematic trope has been done to death…

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TIFF15 REVIEW: Under Rymdskeppet [Beneath the Spaceship] [2015]

Jared Mobarak

“Don’t change a winning recipe” What’s the age cut-off for friendship? It’s an interesting notion to consider because at a certain point a noticeable difference becomes intrinsically pedophilic in the eyes of society. Where a neighbor can befriend someone young as a babysitter, alternate parental figure, etc., as soon as the child hits puberty the platonic nature of the relationship changes. From inside it’s the same because the years have merely gone by. From the outside, however, what would have once been ignored becomes scrutinized. And while the adult has…

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TIFF15 REVIEW: Bunny [2015]

Jared Mobarak

“Friends of your springtime / they are all vanishing / fleeing to fables” Some films end with me desperately trying to find a way to love them to no avail. Megha Ramaswamy‘s Bunny is just such a piece. It is beautifully shot with a Wes Anderson sense of whimsical artifice that’s devoid of dialogue besides the cries of a child. It’s a fantastical fable about a little girl’s (Syesha P Adnani) friend/stuffed animal, its death at the (assumed) hands of a frustrated older sister, and miraculous resurrection with the help…

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TIFF15 REVIEW: Peripheria [2015]

Jared Mobarak

A post-apocalyptic wasteland born from an abandoned council estate of mammoth cement structures covered in graffiti and devoid of life—human life— David Coquard-Dassault‘s Peripheria showcases an aftermath of the unusable imprint we’ve made on Earth. Without our species to use these homes for dwelling or canvases, they merely stand reflecting the sun as large shadow makers for the creatures still roaming below. The dogs are what’s left, feral and awake. They rule the land with teeth bared, claiming property and possession as the owners cooped up in 10,000-plus habitats piled…

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TIFF15 REVIEW: The Sky Trembles and the Earth Is Afraid and the Two Eyes Are Not Brothers [2016]

Jared Mobarak

“It made him think that Satan was nearby” Writer/director Ben Rivers‘ The Sky Trembles and the Earth Is Afraid and the Two Eyes Are Not Brothers is a lot more than merely a movie. It is quite literally a work of art—and to say that doesn’t presuppose other movies aren’t. This film is the culmination of multiple installations, adaptations, and meta-narratives: a document of the full project that places its theme inside one of the most recognizable short stories of the twentieth century to play on the illusion of cinema.…

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TIFF15 REVIEW: People Are Becoming Clouds [2015]

Jared Mobarak

“What was the question I had asked?” There’s a cute conceit at the heart of Marc Katz‘s People Are Becoming Clouds. John (David Ross) and Eleanor (Libby Woodbridge) have recently been married and ever since moving into a new apartment together have found she tends to transform into a cloud. Sometimes the type is in accord with her mood as far as color and lightning, others find her as distinct shapes like a dove playing a trumpet. In order to try and combat their struggle they seek Dr. Corduroy’s (Sean…

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TIFF15 REVIEW: Spear [2016]

Jared Mobarak

“I lost myself. A foot in each world.” Interpretative dance is not something to be lightly taken. You either have the propensity to let it wash over you in its loose gyrations of emotional expression or you roll your eyes at what look to be seizures on stage. I’m probably in the middle of the pack in that I’m open to the performative aspect of the medium if not quite capable of understanding what’s happening beyond its purely aesthetic level. It helps to read an artist’s statement to delve deeper…

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TIFF15 REVIEW: Yaldey Mafteah [Latchkey Kids] [2015]

Jared Mobarak

“Don’t ruin this for me” Love takes many forms and sometimes they can be confusing when you’ve never experienced a divide. For Gur (Yoav Rotman) and Daniel (Gaia Shalita Katz), growing up with absentee parents and for all intents and purposes raising each other has cultivated a deeply rooted bond. They’ve promised to never leave the other alone and they mean it. But while Daniel has matured to the point of understanding that loyalty stems from a familial place, Gur still cannot separate a sense of ownership in her love.…

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