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TIFF21 REVIEW: Mlungu Wam [Good Madam] [2021]

2021/09/082021/09/10 Jared Mobarak

It seems this house doesn’t like Mama. A matriarch passes and the family swarms to poach whatever they can in the aftermath. Tsidi (Chumisa Cosa) tells herself it won’t matter—she’s been the one taking care of her grandmother and thus has a claim over that which she has called her home for years, but “fair” doesn’t factor in where tradition is concerned. Her uncle (as the eldest) allows Tsidi’s cousins to put her in her place as new construction plans made while the recently departed was still alive become colored…

TIFF21 REVIEW: Terrorizers [2021]

2021/09/062021/09/11 Jared Mobarak

You really like roses. On first blush, Wi Ding Ho‘s (co-written by Natasha Kang-Hsin Sung) Terrorizers looks like a love story six years in the making. That’s when a young, blonde-haired dishwasher named Xiao Zhang (J.C. Lin) gave roses to a pretty girl named Yu Fang (Moon Lee). Now he’s returned from sailing abroad as a chef, reconnecting with his uncle for breakfast before starting his new job at a local restaurant. She just so happens to be working at the diner they visit. While Xiao knows exactly who she…

TIFF21 REVIEW: Farha [2021]

2021/09/052021/09/11 Jared Mobarak

What brought you back? The text reads: Palestine, 1948. That’s all you need to know to understand what’s coming. A year earlier was the start of the Palestinian Civil War between Jewish and Arab residents after the United Nations recommended the land’s separation in a Jewish and Arab state. Israel declared independence in May of 1948 and, as some history books describe it, a mass exodus arose to render about half of the nation’s pre-WWII Arab population (700,000) into refugees without a home. To simply call it an exodus, however,…

TIFF21 REVIEW: Matar a la bestia [To Kill the Beast] [2021]

2021/09/032021/09/10 Jared Mobarak

When people cause you pain, it’s better to stay away. A beast has arrived at a small town on the border between Argentina and Brazil. People talk about it being the spirit of an evil man, transforming into different animals to stalk its prey. Women are told to be afraid just as they’re told they’ll be protected. Whether businessmen, men of God, or neighbors, no one will rest until the creature is caught. Except, of course, that it never will. Because while we see it as a bull watching from…

TIFF21 REVIEW: Ste. Anne [2021]

2021/08/312021/09/14 Jared Mobarak

She scolded God. It’s been four years since Renée (Rhéanne Vermette) left home without a word. Four years that her brother Modeste (Jack Theis) and his wife Elenore (Valerie Marion) have spent raising her daughter Athene (Isabelle d’Eschambault) as their own. Their reunion is thus not without its confusion as the little girl is suddenly caught between two mothers: one she knows and one she barely remembers. What little does stick in her mind feels different from the woman now set in front of her too just as everything else…

TIFF21 REVIEW: Sis dies corrents [The Odd-Job Men] [2021]

2021/08/292021/09/10 Jared Mobarak

What could go wrong? It’s an important week for three handymen in Barcelona. Pep (Pep Sarrà) is retiring after decades on the job. Moha (Mohamed Mellali) is showing what he can do as his potential replacement. And Valero (Valero Escolar) is left to reconcile their swap’s extreme change to his routine with an empty stomach due to a last-minute attempt to lose weight before a family member’s wedding that weekend. There’s a bit of “old man yelling at clouds” with Pep’s last hurrah providing the opportunity to tell builders how…

TIFF21 REVIEW: Cicha ziemia [Silent Land] [2022]

2021/08/282021/09/11 Jared Mobarak

Guests are always welcome here. Desperate for respite from their bourgeois lives in Poland, Adam (Dobromir Dymecki) and Anna (Agnieszka Zulewska) decide to vacation on a tiny island in Italy to get away. They wanted a big house with a pool and scenic view to spend as much time alone on the property as possible. While a genial local (Marcello Romolo‘s Fabio) promised exactly that, the pool is found empty and in disarray. He offers a discount. They refuse. He offers a free dinner at his trattoria in town. They…

FANTASIA21 REVIEW: Daewoebi: Gwonryeok-ui Tansaeng [The Devil’s Deal] [2021]

2021/08/172021/08/22 Jared Mobarak

Can’t we live ordinary lives? There’s no way anybody beats Jeon Hae-woong (Cho Jin-woong) in a hometown election because everyone in Haeundae loves him. Walking down the street means shaking hands and bowing to applause because the people know that he will fight for them. He is one of them, after all. Thinking as much only proves naïve if the world in which he exists is corrupt and, according to the President (who is also up for re-election at the same time as Congress), this will be the most transparently…

FANTASIA21 REVIEW: Sorido Eopsi [Voice of Silence] [2020]

2021/08/152021/08/18 Jared Mobarak

Today’s honest sweat is tomorrow’s happiness. Chang-bok (Yoo Jae-Myung) and Tae-in (Yoo Ah-in) sell eggs out the back of the former’s truck in the country. It’s honest work, but hardly pays the bills. So rather than go home when they change their clothes afterwards, they drive to an old, abandoned warehouse instead. Now donning ponchos, they spread plastic sheets on the floor below what’s soon to be revealed as the only thing it can be hanging above: the body of a tied-up man, beaten and confused. If they’re being honest,…

FANTASIA21 REVIEW: Sukutte goran [Love, Life and Goldfish] [2021]

2021/08/142021/08/15 Jared Mobarak

It was uplifting to some extent. There are two types of people in this world. Those who find a ninety-minute romantic comedy musical with a ninety-second song serving as an intermission break twee and those who find it charming. Middle ground doesn’t exist in this equation and director Yukinori Makabe rightfully refuses to pretend otherwise. His film Sukutte goran [Love, Life and Goldfish] (adapted by Atsumi Tsuchi from Noriko Otani‘s manga of the same name) wears its idiosyncratic feel-good sentimentality on its sleeve to provide the dreamlike environment Makoto Kashiba…

FANTASIA21 REVIEW: Hotel Poseidon [2021]

2021/08/132021/08/15 Jared Mobarak

A way towards tomorrow. I’m not sure what I just saw. Was it surreal comedy in a setting that exudes sympathy puke aura? Was it a nightmarish horror sending us down a chaotic rabbit hole of insecurities, hopes, and inferiority? Perhaps a little of both? Either way, Stefan Lernous‘ Hotel Poseidon throws any semblance of a narrative out the window with an opening scene that does nothing but rotate around the lobby of this derelict establishment to supply an ingenious title-card explaining the film’s true star: its locale. The lights…