Category: Film Festival

TIFF REVIEW: Mouthpiece [2019]

Jared Mobarak

This isn’t about you. Cassandra (played by Amy Nostbakken and Norah Sadava) reminds her mother (Maev Beaty‘s Elaine) that we (humans) used to only live until forty. I think we often forget this fact—subjectively rather than objectively. The disparity between my generation and my parents’ is a veritable canyon as far as notions of domesticity, parenthood, and identity as a whole. Boomers were married with two kids by the time they exited college and now it’s not unusual to wait that long just to pick a major. We don’t move…

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TIFF REVIEW: Les filles du soleil [Girls of the Sun] [2018]

Jared Mobarak

Women, life, liberty. It’s just like America to document ISIS as a fight we must combat—like the saviors we are. There’s a reason for this from our perspective, but our jingoistic thought process does detract from what’s occurring on the ground. People are engaged in a war that they have no way to avoid. They’ve been displaced from their homes by a terrorist regime that has murdered them, raped them, and indoctrinated their youth into joining the cause. So our hero complex has devastating effects insofar as erasing the victims…

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TIFF REVIEW: Loro [2018]

Jared Mobarak

Him, Him? If you watch “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” you know Silvio Berlisconi. The Italian tycoon turned politician is mired in scandals, controversy, and populist excitement to the point of having a bizarre theme song declaring, “Thank Goodness for Silvio.” He smiles and waves, refuses to divest business interests while in office, and worked to enact laws that helped him and his friends become wealthier while also staying out of jail (mostly). It’s no surprise then that many say he set the precedent for the political chaos Donald…

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TIFF18 REVIEW: Fiore Gemello [Twin Flower] [2018]

Jared Mobarak

Shall we go? Two strangers running from personal demons collide at the start of Laura Luchetti‘s Sardinia-set Fiore gemello [Twin Flower]. He (Kallil Kone’s Basim) is an Ivory Coast immigrant desperate for money yet unequipped with the correct paperwork to earn gainful employment. She (Anastasiya Bogach’s Anna) is desperate to escape a pursuer (Aniello Arena‘s Manfredi) seen in duress but no less determined to get his hands on her eventually. They’re both alone on the open road, unsure where to go besides knowing it must be anywhere but here. A…

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TIFF18 REVIEW: Aniara [2018]

Jared Mobarak

The utter nonsense of living. So much of our desire to exist is based in control. We have the ability to move our homes, restart careers, and work towards a future of our choosing. No matter how difficult things become, there’s always a hope for better or an avenue towards change. It’s only when we’re cornered without an exit that we start to let our fears rule us rather than the infinite possibilities in our grasp. We search for meaning and answers, struggling to reconcile that happiness may have always…

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TIFF18 REVIEW: Jessica Forever [2018]

Jared Mobarak

Why wouldn’t you come with us? Redemption is a tricky concept. Can you be redeemed without forgiveness from those you wronged? Are our actions in the aftermath enough to achieve some semblance of peace if they show we’ve learned through remorse? Everyone has a different opinion on the matter whether victim, loved one, stranger, or corporation. Rehabilitation only goes so far when you find yourself free without any opportunities to prove to yourself that change was worth the trouble. There’s a reason so many criminals find themselves right back in…

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TIFF18 REVIEW: Where Hands Touch [2018]

Jared Mobarak

I want her to be like everyone else: unremarkable. Now is not the time to make a film romanticizing Nazism or allowing anyone who donned the swastika during World War II a modicum of sympathy. I’d argue there could never be such a time—at least not for those who say they felt bad but still did nothing to stop the nightmare they helped usher into creation. Their cooperation in a genocidal extermination cannot be given a footnote for remorse. They cannot skate by on some notion that they participated unwillingly…

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TIFF18 REVIEW: Hölmö nuori sydän [Stupid Young Heart] [2018]

Jared Mobarak

Nobody knows. It was fun to laugh back in January when Donald Trump spoke to the media about how he wanted fewer immigrants from “shithole” countries and more from the likes of Norway. We laughed because it was obvious what the difference between the two was for him—my ignorance towards Scandinavian politics stopping at the color of their respective skin. But apparently there’s a growing trend towards radical right populism and nationalism over there too. Just as Nazis have come out of the woodwork in America under their rebranded moniker…

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TIFF18 REVIEW: The Truth About Killer Robots [2018]

Jared Mobarak

We will not consider the question of the robot’s guilt. The title to Maxim Pozdorovkin‘s documentary The Truth About Killer Robots is intentionally sensationalized for the same reasons a real newspaper article about the death by machine of a Volkswagen factory worker would be accompanied by a photograph of a terminator. James Cameron put a face to the concern humanity has about artificial intelligence and technology—that some type of uprising will occur once we either wrong our creations or prove the catalyst of our own extinction and thus the “disease”…

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TIFF18 REVIEW: Das schönste Paar [The Most Beautiful Couple] [2018]

Jared Mobarak

Stay cool. Okay? It starts with a rape. I won’t lie: I sighed thinking Sven Taddicken‘s Das schönste Paar [The Most Beautiful Couple] was going to end up another drama about coping and retribution like most others wherein Liv (Luise Heyer) struggles as Malte (Maximilian Brückner) protects. So it was a welcome surprise when we’re moved past this harrowing prologue to meet the couple two years later working, smiling, and possibly healed in a bid to forget. Not only that, but Liv proves the one who wants to celebrate upon…

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TIFF18 REVIEW: Cascos Indomables [Helmet Heads] [2018]

Jared Mobarak

There’s a spot on your face. If Broken Lizard were Central American and deadpan, they might make something akin to Ernesto Villalobos‘ Cascos Indomables [Helmet Heads]. Think an extremely droll Super Troopers meets Office Space starring a sextet of bike messengers desperately trying to break the monotony of their stagnant lives while also staying afloat once their employer closes shop without warning. At the center lies Mancha (Arturo Pardo), a listless sleepwalker of a man allergic to change in any form. Of all these men left unemployed, he’s the sole…

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