Category: Foreign

REVIEW: Deux jours, une nuit [Two Days, One Night] [2014]

Jared Mobarak

“You mustn’t cry” Leave it to Marion Cotillard to take an otherwise workmanlike film and make it into a must-see. On the surface Deux jours, une nuit [Two Days, One Night] is simply a series of emotionally reactive moments responding to a decision unfairly placed on the shoulders of blue-collar employees at the local solar panel plant. Would you rather collect your year-end bonus or watch as a senior co-worker, just recovered from a depression-induced sick leave, returns to her post by your side? Without a true human connection to…

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REVIEW: אפס ביחסי אנוש [Zero Motivation] [2014]

Jared Mobarak

“Paper Shredding NCO is what you make it” When thinking about the Israeli army, images of badass Mossad agents covertly wreaking havoc across the world crop up. It’s a hyperbolic generalization, but that’s kind of the flavor our media delivers being that the country is such a strong defensive ally of the US. We’re to believe in their power. The problem with this, however, comes from the fact every citizen eighteen and older is conscripted to a mandatory two-year stint. No country can have a law like that and expect…

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REVIEW: Prada: Candy [2013]

Jared Mobarak

“I baked a cake” The message appears to be that Prada will make you irresistible as well as vain enough to yearn for the attention it demands. I guess this means it’s a job well done being that Prada: Candy is a commercial, but as a short film it’s lacking in showing us something other than fun frivolity. It definitely has Wes Anderson‘s visual style and Roman Coppola‘s dry wit, but I don’t think anyone would care if it didn’t involve them. So, in the end, it’s merely a depiction…

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REVIEW: Turist [Force Majeure] [2014]

Jared Mobarak

“You can’t run in snow boots?” Very rarely does an international name change occur for the better, but few titles are more perfect for their respective film than Force Majeure. The original Swedish moniker was Turist, a succinct and appropriate label considering the entire piece portrays a family’s five-day ski vacation in French Alps. Force Majeure, however, showcases the powerfully random event that changes the tone and dynamic of the characters involved as well as the story itself. The beauty of Ruben Östlund‘s creation is that this moment arising to…

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TIFF14 REVIEW: Beats of the Antonov [2014]

Jared Mobarak

“Laughter is like a new birth” Sudanese director Hajooj Kuka‘s documentary Beats of the Antonov is smartly constructed in a way that eases us into the political message and hope for peace lying underneath the music and laughter initially portrayed. Beginning with a look at the people residing in the Blue Nile and the Nuba Mountains, we learn about the planes overhead dropping bombs while they hide in ditches for cover. No matter how much pain and suffering is inflicted by these raids, however, they emerge with smiles to the…

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TIFF14 REVIEW: Loin des hommes [Far From Men] [2015]

Jared Mobarak

“I’m not taking you anywhere. Tomorrow you’re leaving.” Writer/director David Oelhoffen has a special film on his hands because its powerful tale begs audience members to learn more about the subject. I’m not talking about the fictional character of Daru (Viggo Mortensen) secluding himself in the mountains to teach young Arab children how to read while civil war wages on or his unwitting ward of the state Mohamed (Reda Kateb) awaiting trial in Tinguit for murdering his cousin. I’m talking about the backdrop—where those mountains are and the “why” of…

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TIFF14 REVIEW: 归来 [Gui lai] [Coming Home] [2014]

Jared Mobarak

“So you do have a heart” I kept trying to think about what films Zhang Yimou‘s 归来 [Gui lai] [Coming Home] reminded me of while watching. Obvious ones came to mind like Away From Her and Amour where Gong Li‘s Yu was concerned and even Atonement for Huiwan Zhang‘s Dandan. But it was a fellow audience member as we walked out who said it best: 50 First Dates. The selection resonated with me because until three-quarters of the way through I thought people laughing were crazy. This is a sensitive…

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TIFF14 REVIEW: Samba [2014]

Jared Mobarak

“Red paper. Then … no more.” Every movie should have a score by Ludovico Einaudi and it’s comforting to see Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano agree. After using his haunting music on the brilliant Intouchables, the duo take a few tracks from his album In a Time Lapse to enhance their latest work Samba. Another drama dealing with serious issues oftentimes handled melodramatically by Hollywood, they find a way to infuse each character’s hardship with a delightfully comic streak. The formula is similar to that Oscar nominee with its two…

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TIFF14 REVIEW: Corbo [2014]

Jared Mobarak

“Tomorrow the enemy will pay for our blood and tears” There’s ease to idolizing the IRA for rising against their British oppressors because the number of Irish descendants retaining a piece of nationalism at heart is huge. Movies deify them, bartenders make “Irish Car Bombs”, and the group remains in existence still hoping for the Irish Republic they proclaimed in 1916. To some the revolution and subsequent civil war were fought by heroes. To others the IRA is nothing more than terrorists. Either way, there’s substance to the effort that…

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TIFF14 REVIEW: Listen [2014]

Jared Mobarak

“Go home and pray” There is no more apt title for Hamy Ramezan and Rungano Nyoni‘s Listen except maybe Comprehend. A 13-minute gut punch dealing with the disparity of culture, language, and religion, to say too much would ruin the perfectly orchestrated dissemination of information from start to finish. It asks questions like: What do we do when we cannot ask for help? What can we do if those meant to help start reacting subjectively rather than with the victim’s wellbeing at heart? Our world has become so flat so…

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TIFF14 REVIEW: Knuffen [The Shove] [2014]

Jared Mobarak

“I was sentenced to a shoving last night” With an opening credit sequence recalling a 70s vibe via Quentin Tarantino, My Sandström‘s surrealist take on the paranoia of uncertainty delivers humor rather than the pulpy drama you may expect from the grainy picture and thick yellow text. There is a lot of this sort of playing with expectation involved right down to Tobbe’s (Magnus Sundberg) giant of a man being crippled by the absurdist “sentence” given to him by an inspector (Annafrida Bengtsson) of unknown origins walking the streets with…

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