French | www.jaredmobarak.com

REVIEW: La vie d’Adèle [Blue Is the Warmest Color] [2013]

2013/11/032013/11/13 Jared Mobarak

“Tragedy is the unavoidable” While you wouldn’t usually believe something could possibly become more controversial than its own distinction of being a three-hour NC-17 film about a fifteen-year old girl searching for her sexuality and the resulting love shaping her trajectory towards adulthood, talk during La vie d’Adèle’s [Blue Is the Warmest Color] festival tour proved otherwise. Director Abdellatif Kechiche declared it to have been sullied to the extent where it shouldn’t be released while stars Léa Seydoux and Adèle Exarchopoulos discussed the arduous shoot in a way that made…

REVIEW: Notre jour viendra [Our Day Will Come] [2010]

2013/10/182016/02/24 Jared Mobarak

“How long can you stay a dumb, dull redhead?” Europe possesses a couple vocabulary words that we Americans wouldn’t take seriously if heard uttered in conversation. There’s a prejudice across the Atlantic—especially in England—against redheads that has coined the terms “gingerphobia” and “gingerism” as a form of hate crime. While the Middle Ages designated the “affliction” as the sign of a witch, werewolf, vampire, or other evil creature with mystical powers and insatiable sexual desire to be feared and disparaged, one would think such assumptions laughably impossible today in the…

REVIEW: Renoir [2013]

2013/10/142014/04/10 Jared Mobarak

“A girl from out of nowhere sent by a dead woman” A name as prolific as Renoir can’t help conjure a litany of tales worthy of the big screen. None, however, are more intriguing than the discovery of the surname’s most famous owners—Impressionist painter Pierre-August and his film-directing son Jean—sharing the same muse. Despite its title then, Gilles Bourdos‘ Renoir is in many respects actually Andrée Heuschling’s (Christa Theret) story. A young dreamer aspiring to become an American actress, the fifteen year old arrives at their family retreat in Cagnes-sur-Mer…

TIFF13 REVIEW: Abus de faiblesse [Abuse of Weakness] [2014]

2013/09/062014/05/19 Jared Mobarak

“Nothing will ever be the same” The draw of Catherine Breillat‘s autobiographical film Abus de faiblesse [Abuse of Weakness] is ultimately to watch how someone so desperately in need can be preyed upon no matter intelligence, wealth, or stature. When tragedy strikes unannounced by means of a debilitating stroke, the fear of death and paralysis eventually makes its way to newfound tenacity and strength. But what no one who isn’t absolutely indebted to the help of others for even menial tasks like opening a door can know is that the…

REVIEW: Thérèse Desqueyroux [Thérèse] [2012]

2013/08/202013/08/23 Jared Mobarak

“I’m marrying you for your pines, too” Only a 1927 novel can get away with its titular character yearning for a marriage built on land and stability instead of love for no other reason than to quiet ‘unfeminine’ aspirations beyond domesticity. Dismissed as a silly little thing with too many ideas and not enough religion, Thérèse Despeyreux actually wants to be rid of her thoughts and seek refuge in her best friend Anne’s brother’s simplicity. What she didn’t count on was exactly what this new sister-in-law warned—a life devoid of…

REVIEW: Dans la maison [In the House] [2012]

2013/04/152015/09/21 Jared Mobarak

“What’s a perfect family’s house like?” What happens inside one’s home is sacred. Your skeletons are exposed, carefully manufactured façades rest for the night, and pent up frustrations boil to the surface in a cathartic outburst of unchecked emotion and fatigued spirit. This is why voyeurism has such a psychologically sensual appeal in its incomparable way of satisfying one’s desires, fantasies, and curiosity. When our lives hit a rut of dull monotony we find ourselves searching for outside entertainment—through books, movies, videogames, hobbies, or that unavoidable satisfaction of stumbling upon…

REVIEW: Henry [2012]

2013/01/262013/08/07 Jared Mobarak

“Stay with me a little longer” Our greatest fear in life is living to the point where we no longer remember what it was we accomplished. Gone are the moments spent as heroes. Disappeared are the faces of loved ones who stood by our side every second of every day. We yearn for the glimpses—no matter how brief—of the person we once were, scared by our inability to conjure a single shred of identity. And when we do, the disorientation of time and place distorts us to the point of…

REVIEW: Let My People Go! [2011]

2013/01/052013/08/08 Jared Mobarak

“My life is one bad Jewish joke” For his first feature length film, writer/director Mikael Buch has decided upon an extremely over-the-top romantic farce about a young homosexual Jewish man coming home to France from Finland after a lovers’ spat. It all plays out during Passover with a not-so-subtle aside about the holiday prayer speaking on the Exodus from Egypt and the coalescing of a people under the leadership of Moses. As Ézechiel the Rabbi (Michaël Abiteboul) says towards the end of the aptly named Let My People Go!, the…

REVIEW: De rouille et d’os [Rust and Bone] [2012]

2012/12/242013/08/08 Jared Mobarak

“What’s up Robocop?” There’s nothing like a little tragic drama helping troubled souls find purpose in their lives to warm your heart. No, really, there isn’t. With the way the movies tell it, sometimes I get jealous I’ve never gone through a horrible near-death experience or witnessed someone close to me doing so because those things always seem to meander their way into allowing their victims to achieve that ever-elusive moment of clarity. Sure the path probably contains a few more rough patches—with the worst generally yet to come—but sometimes…

REVIEW: Amour [2012]

2012/12/242013/08/08 Jared Mobarak

“Promise me one thing.” For someone as famously attuned to the intellectual thriller oftentimes leaning towards the hidden recesses of humanity’s darkest proclivities, seeing writer/director Michael Haneke‘s name attached to the universally lauded Amour was always a bit of a puzzle. Depicting the final months in the lives of two eighty-year old former music teachers—Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant) and Anne (Emmanuelle Riva)—after the lady of the house suffers a debilitating stroke, the film’s rather heartbreaking portrayal of sacrifice and unwavering adoration is without a doubt an aberration in the auteur’s oeuvre.…

REVIEW: Holy Motors [2012]

2012/12/212019/12/29 Jared Mobarak

“Too bad. I miss forests.” Is it science fiction, fantasy, drama, comedy, all or none of the above? As spoken by a character from within, beauty exists in the eye of the beholder and so does the importance of Leos Carax‘s Holy Motors. However, rather than positing the question of what happens when there no longer is a beholder, I wonder if the film actually waxes poetic on the truth that we are quickly becoming beholden to everything. Through enhancing technology and a flattening of the world, we have the…