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REVIEW: Phoenix [2014]

2015/08/222015/08/24 Jared Mobarak

“I no longer exist” The Holocaust left thousands of survivors stripped of identity—branded by a number as though they weren’t worthy of the name given at birth. To exit such horror was to enter a new world forever changed for them as well as those lucky enough to have missed the nightmare first-hand. Pity, guilt, sorrow, and anger mixed as victims, oppressors, heroes, and bystanders who refused to acknowledge the truth reunited in a post-War Earth. Nations tried to make things better by pooling together the wealth of those who…

REVIEW: Parvaneh [2012]

2015/01/292015/01/30 Jared Mobarak

“Sorry, can you help send money?” The human condition is on display in Talkhon Hamzavi‘s Parvaneh. Or at least a very optimistic view of what it could and should be whether it takes a little while to get there or not. We like to think there is a universal concept of goodness in us all, but the truth skews closer to selfishness and greed despite the hardships of those we’re willing to take advantage of in pursuit of helping them achieve their own goals. Sometimes, however, our hope for reward…

REVIEW: Tore tanzt [Nothing Bad Can Happen] [2013]

2014/06/242014/06/27 Jared Mobarak

“Sometimes you have to defend yourself” I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that the words “Inspired by true events” only appear onscreen at the end of Tore tanzt [Nothing Bad Can Happen]. The move might be specific to its American release since events as atrocious as those depicted are hardly the type to remain unknown in its home country of Germany before cameras rolled, but boy does reading it pack a punch here. Katrin Gebbe‘s debut is a tough pill to swallow on its own—a story so dedicated to its…

REVIEW: Die Wand [The Wall] [2012]

2013/10/22 Jared Mobarak

“There is no impulse more reasonable than love” There is something to be said about an allegory that doesn’t feel the need to beat you over the head with one “true” interpretation. Isn’t the point of such veiled metaphorical introspection that we experience it on our own terms and take what we will whether right, wrong, or conflicted? This is the type of journey director Julian Pölsler’s adaptation of Marlen Haushofer’s 1963 novel Die Wand [The Wall] takes us, one with deliberate questions devoid of the concrete answers necessary to…

TIFF13 REVIEW: Oktober November [October November] [2014]

2013/09/042014/05/19 Jared Mobarak

“Would you have believed it?” The image of a drowning fish—gasping and jumping atop a rock too far from salvation—is what has stuck with me most after watching writer/director Götz Spielmann’s new dramatic study of two sisters worlds apart in life and the dying father binding them together. Each character is like that fish, struggling to stay relevant within disparate identities none can truly admit are bringing happiness. They seek solace in that which they cannot have, going through the motions of existences teetering towards futility. The sisters’ transgressions begin…

TIFF12 REVIEW: Wir wollten aufs Meer [Shores of Hope] [2012]

2012/08/272014/04/11 Jared Mobarak

“Hope dies last, Schmidt” It’s East Berlin, 1984—an entire nation under the Stasi’s watchful eye. Freedom is near impossible without risk of arrest or bullet courtesy of a botched escape west, the life of a sailor a young man’s one legitimate avenue out. With destination an afterthought, the open sea becomes every lucky appointee’s gateway to the world and a future. But like all oppressive regimes, false hope keeps the unhappy rabble in line. If workers strive to please, the promise of reward succeeds despite its empty, manipulative lie. Unable…

BNFF11 REVIEW: Der Sandmann [The Sandman] [2011]

2011/04/172014/06/06 Jared Mobarak

“Ears need air at night” What would you do if you woke up one morning to find sand in your bed? You haven’t gone to the beach and you didn’t do anything at night besides dream a very realistic dream with sun and sights. Your boss at a local stamp collecting shop made mention of seeing granules around the front desk—saying he’d like to kick the knee of whomever is bringing in such dirt—your doctor gives you a clean bill of health, and your shrink thinks you’re sharing a nicely…

REVIEW: Alle Anderen [Everyone Else] [2010]

2011/01/042013/06/20 Jared Mobarak

“Do you hate me sometimes?” The problem with humanity is that our lives, our happiness, our love can never be enough. Like the title of Maren Ade’s film, we worry too much about Alle Anderen [Everyone Else], forgetting how we may already have what we need. Pressure is constantly weighed down as biological clocks tick, windows for dream jobs or business opportunities close, and better options seemingly arrive from all angles to make us question if where we are is truly where we want to be. We want more as…

REVIEW: Joyeux Noël [Merry Christmas] [2005]

2010/11/152013/07/11 Jared Mobarak

“No, you’re just not living the same war as me” Back in 1914, war wasn’t fought through technology and computers, missiles being sent to destroy lives as though a video game victory—no, it was battled in the trenches, feet away from the enemy, watching for the glimpse of an eye to shoot. Military leaders and propaganda brainwash young men into vilifying those on opposite sides, turning them to monsters without souls, without compassion, without humanity. But that’s an over simplification; just as you have a wife, children, and family back…

TIFF09 REVIEW: Das weiße Band [The White Ribbon] [2009]

2009/09/122011/08/24 Jared Mobarak

“I gave God a chance to kill me” Hailed by the TIFF moderator as Michael Haneke’s masterpiece, I found myself expecting something very specific from Das weiße Band [The White Ribbon]. Thinking about the uncomfortable feeling he leaves the audience with during both Funny Games and Caché, I readied myself for a dark and disturbing look into an Austrian town before the First World War. The film is just under two and half hours long, somber in its execution and quietly powerful in its subject matter. At every second I…

REVIEW: Woyzeck [1979]

2009/01/272012/07/17 Jared Mobarak

“You always look so hunted” **Spoilers** Let’s just say that it is good to watch something as potentially inaccessible as Werner Herzog’s Woyzeck with friends who know something about the work for which it is based. As someone unfamiliar with Herzog’s and Klaus Kinski’s film work—this is my first look at their tumultuous yet epic cinematic partnership—and clueless on the story this movie portrays, a post-screening discussion was much appreciated. Especially since the group I watched with is putting on an abstracted, and most likely absurdist, performance of the play,…