Tag: Laia Costa

REVIEW: Piercing [2019]

Jared Mobarak

The terror must be in English. A marriage between the gorgeously disturbing imagery Nicolas Pesce delivered via his debut The Eyes of My Mother and the surreally warped sensibilities of Audition author Ryû Murakami definitely piqued my interest as far as the former’s adaptation of the latter’s novel Piercing. This psycho-thriller concerns new father Reed’s (Christopher Abbott) need to briefly leave his wife (Laia Costa‘s Mona) and the baby he can’t stop himself from wanting to stab with an ice pick in order to find a prostitute with which to…

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TIFF REVIEW: Life Itself [2018]

Jared Mobarak

Tell them I’m nice. Morbid or not: I love when stationary characters turn to the camera only to be hit by a vehicle coming from offscreen. There’s something that’s just immensely satisfying about watching one step into that sweet spot of quiet, empty space with a hindered view on either side. I brace for impact, disappointed when it doesn’t arrive because the blocking so perfectly sets up tragedy despite the filmmaker’s decision to squander the opportunity. So I of course smiled when the first such collision occurs during Dan Fogelman‘s…

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INTERVIEW: Sebastian Schipper, director/cowriter of Victoria

Jared Mobarak

The word on the street about Victoria is that it’s a must-see for one reason: its entire two-plus hour runtime was captured in a single, pulse-pounding continuous take. While that aspect is definitely paramount, don’t think the film has nothing else to offer. This thing gets your blood pumping as much from the authentic performances of regular people in over their heads as it does the technical artistry. And the man leading the way to orchestrate both these halves is Sebastian Schipper. We talked with the co-writer/director about his trust…

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TIFF15 REVIEW: Victoria [2015]

Jared Mobarak

“Let’s hit the roof, boys” If director/co-writer Sebastian Schipper wanted, he could have easily turned Victoria into a first-person adventure through the streets of Berlin. It practically is already considering cinematographer Sturla Brandth Grøvlen follows behind the filmmaker’s main quartet for the entire two-hour, eighteen-minute single shot. Unlike allowing its characters to turn towards the camera and speak to us like Man Bites Dog or What We Do In the Shadows, this thriller isn’t satirical or comedic. Rather than be explicitly involved in the whirlwind evening full of passion and…

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