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REVIEW: Ha’berech [Ahed’s Knee] [2021]

2022/03/162022/03/16 Jared Mobarak

Although there are no answers. Ask Y (Avshalom Pollak) what you can be in an increasingly oppressive state like his homeland of Israel and he’ll say: victim, aggressor, or complicit bystander. It’s a very reductive view of the world—a cynical one too. You can’t really blame him for existing in a headspace of such extremes, though, considering the world around him is crumbling. His mother, confidant, and artistic collaborator is dying of cancer. His politically charged films are at-risk of being censored both in post-production via a cultural ministry working…

REVIEW: White Eye [2021]

2021/03/242021/03/31 Jared Mobarak

I’m telling you it’s my bike. It’s one thing to create a morality play that teaches its lesson while leaving everyone better people by the end, but it’s another to create one that actually maintains authenticity. Because let’s face it: lessons often come at a price. And when said lesson involves the police, that price can be a lot steeper than you may have assumed. We therefore know things will most likely devolve the moment Omer (Daniel Gad) calls them to deal with his situation on the record because their…

OIFF19 REVIEW: סיבת המוות [Cause of Death] [2019]

2019/11/122020/03/23 Jared Mobarak

I can’t stop thinking about it. Director Ramy A Katz leaves three text cards at the end of his Cause of Death to share responses to the film that were supplied by the Israeli police department, Ministry of Health, and the medical examiner of Officer Salim Barakat’s body upon his death at the scene of a terrorist attack in Tel Aviv on March 5, 2002. Each statement possesses one commonality that doesn’t make sense when read after watching Salim’s brother Jamal’s unofficial investigation into what happened a decade later. It’s…

REVIEW: האופה-מברלין [Der Kuchenmacher] [The Cakemaker] [2017]

2018/07/252020/04/03 Jared Mobarak

I’m not alone. A romantic drama wielding nationality, sexuality, and religion as crucial dramatic themes without giving into their rigidity atop a backdrop of delicious baked goods sounds more than ambitious—it sounds foolhardy. But writer/director Ofir Raul Graizer set out and accomplished exactly that with his acclaimed Der Kuchenmacher [The Cakemaker]. He travels between a quaint Berlin bakery to a strictly kosher Jerusalem neighborhood atop the shoulders of a man lost in love and feeling happier than his wildest dreams. Thomas (Tim Kalkhof) didn’t crave family or the desire for…

REVIEW: ישמח חתני [Ismach Hatani] [The Women’s Balcony] [2016]

2017/05/172017/05/24 Jared Mobarak

“Evil decrees upon evil decrees with evil decrees of evil” There’s more to ישמח חתני [Ismach Hatani] [The Women’s Balcony] than the American marketing machine has thus far presented. Billed as a feel good comedy of communal spirit—and correctly so—there are much weightier issues at play. This isn’t merely a farcical war between a synagogue’s female congregation and a new rabbi placing their demands behind his own. It’s also a keenly intuitive account of fundamentalist extremism in a forum we aren’t used to seeing. Too often Hollywood takes this concept…

TIFF16 REVIEW: טהורה לעד [Tehora la’ad] [Forever Pure] [2016]

2016/09/222016/09/22 Jared Mobarak

“My heart will always stay yellow and black” Just when you think it can’t get worse—that the vocal, racist minority spewing bile will be extinguished in a show of tide-turning empathy—everything is literally engulfed in flames as a city watches it burn to cheers from a cesspool of hate. This is the 2012-2013 season for Beitar Jerusalem FC in the Israeli Premier League. A soccer team beloved by enough fans to make them a political target for President Reuven Rivlin and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the reason their owner at…

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

2015/09/062015/09/16 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.…

TIFF15 REVIEW: Laila Acharon [One Last Night] [2015]

2015/09/052015/09/16 Jared Mobarak

“I wish we could stay like this forever” Despite many aging punk rockers going strong—or maybe they’re the punk poppers—the punk-rock game is for the young. It’s easy to be anti-establishment and anarchist when life has yet to drag you into its tractor beam of responsibility. To party all night and not worry about the consequences an evening in jail brings isn’t something you can sustain into your late-twenties when life replaces fun. Noa (Michal Korman) understands this because she finds herself at a crossroads between following love for love’s…

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

2014/11/262014/12/02 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…