Category: Drama

TIFF16 REVIEW: American Pastoral [2016]

Jared Mobarak

“You told her to bring the war home” If my limited experience with Philip Roth adaptations is any indication, his novels deal in emotion. There are existential crises concerning identity involved, each a character study about life’s impact beyond the surface experiences propelling them forward. This isn’t something easily translated from page to screen when so much consists of internalized motivation. You must really look into the text, ignoring plot to find the core reactionary cause for everything occurring. If a daughter’s disappearance indelibly changes every second of her parents’…

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TIFF16 REVIEW: A Monster Calls [2016]

Jared Mobarak

“You will tell me your nightmare. That will be your truth.” When your author and illustrator both win Carnegie and Greenaway Medals for the same book (it may still be the only time ever), you can bet Hollywood will come knocking. Even though the production is a joint effort between Britain (the majority of its cast) and Spain (The Orphanage director J.A. Bayona), it was Focus Features who scooped up the rights to Patrick Ness‘ A Monster Calls. The decision was a no-brainer without the accolades, its fairy tale proving…

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TIFF16 REVIEW: Burn Your Maps [2017]

Jared Mobarak

“The kid in the strange clothes said he gave birth to two goats” Many films deal with the aftermath of a family death by becoming about how their characters live with the pain—changing them into different people. Some distinctly show them living despite it instead. Rather than depict Connor (Marton Csokas) and Alise (Vera Farmiga) as the death of their baby girl just ten months prior consumes them, Jordan Roberts‘ Burn Your Maps portrays their desire to move on after their transformations are complete. They’re searching for a future they…

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TIFF16 REVIEW: Pyromanen [Pyromaniac] [2016]

Jared Mobarak

“You can be whatever you want to be” Going in with no expectations besides the recent news that the film had been shortlisted for Norway’s 2017 Oscar selection, director Erik Skjoldbjærg‘s Pyromanen [Pyromaniac] could not have delivered a better start to get me ready. Using extended camera movements to capture subtle detail from a car driving up to the older woman’s look of panic inside the house as she searches for her husband with ominous words, “He’s here.” I was enraptured. Glass breaks and fire bursts out from door to…

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TIFF16 REVIEW: Past Life [2016]

Jared Mobarak

“In tragedy you can’t escape fate” It’s 1977 and you’re the lead soprano in your first international concert. Rapturous applause and a flawless performance later you find yourself hobnobbing with classmates and audience members alike, the famed German composer Thomas Zielinski (Rafael Stachowiak) even enters to the crowd’s delight. But rather than let the electricity of the moment overwhelm you and bask in the glory of a successful evening, you can’t help noticing an older woman walking towards you with a scowl on her face. She asks your name, inquires…

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TIFF16 REVIEW: Nikdy nejsme sami [We Are Never Alone] [2016]

Jared Mobarak

“Those afraid to die are afraid to live” Fans of Quentin Dupieux should rejoice because I haven’t seen a film this absurdly hilarious since Wrong. Petr Václav‘s Nikdy nejsme sami [We Are Never Alone] is definitely bleaker, darker, and strangely realist, but it has that same sense of subtle humor to give you pause about the meaning of what’s thus far been viewed. The story concerns two families with certifiably insane patriarchs, a local pimp searching for escape, and the whore he deludes himself into thinking loves him despite her…

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TIFF16 REVIEW: Tereddüt [Clair Obscur] [2017]

Jared Mobarak

“Like a thorn” Life for a woman like Elmas (Ecem Uzun) in Turkey is a living nightmare. An eighteen-year old all but sold to a willing husband (Serkan Keskin‘s Koca) much older than she to clean his house, give her mother-in-law (Sema Poyraz‘s Kaynana) across the hall insulin shots, and—marriage or not—get raped every night, she’s gradually losing her sense of identity and mind. She’s so young and unversed in the world that she makes a game out of folding the sheets atop their bed to see whether a coin…

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TIFF16 REVIEW: Without Name [2016]

Jared Mobarak

“Best to sleep with your pajamas on inside out, yeah?” For someone afraid of loneliness, Eric (Alan McKenna) sure loves putting himself in positions that can’t help isolating him from the world. A land surveyor who specializes in remote areas and works by himself unless apprentice-of-sorts Olivia (Niamh Algar) can tear herself away from her thesis to help, his long hours and extramarital affair (also when Olivia can put down her studies) risk destroying a marriage already on the rocks. He must work to keep his family together and therefore…

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TIFF16 REVIEW: Zacma [Blindness] [2016]

Jared Mobarak

“Hatred conceals faith” The roles have been reversed for Julia Brystygier (Maria Mamona), the once powerful colonel in the USSR’s Ministry. She interrogated countless enemies of the state, namely Catholics who rejected the communist concepts ruling them. The human body was her canvas, torture her paintbrush—nothing was out of bounds as far as acquiring the information she sought. But that was years ago. Now she’s a private citizen like the masses trying to survive. A lucky one too considering many of her superiors during that period are now in jail…

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TIFF16 REVIEW: Fixeur [The Fixer] [2017]

Jared Mobarak

“We’re journalists not activists. It’s not the same thing.” Some people can’t help themselves from striving to be the best whether that means winning a contest, getting a promotion, earning accolades, or proving you’re the only one able to accomplish an impossible task. They want to be relied upon for results. Radu (Tudor Istodor) is all the above. Doing what he’s told isn’t enough—he looks beyond what’s asked to discover what’s needed. And when it comes to career this character trait has served him well. He possesses the connections, intelligence,…

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TIFF16 REVIEW: Tyttö nimeltä Varpu [Little Wing] [2016]

Jared Mobarak

“Varpu Vanamo raspberry nose, teeny weeny toffee toes” The director of Do I Have to Take Care of Everything?, the hilarious 2014 Oscar nominee for Best Short Film, is back with her sophomore feature narrative Tyttö nimeltä Varpu [Little Wing]. Taking on writing responsibilities this go-round, Selma Vilhunen supplies a much more dramatic work than her aforementioned claim to fame. It’s also a lot more personal with young horse enthusiast and central character Varpu Miettinen’s (Linnea Skog) emotionally trying family life being drawn from her own. She is eleven-years old,…

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