Drama | www.jaredmobarak.com

REVIEW: War Requiem [1989]

2017/03/012017/03/02 Jared Mobarak

“I knew we stood in Hell” English composer Benjamin Britten was commissioned to mark the consecration of the rebuilt Coventry Cathedral in 1962 (after the original was destroyed during World War II). The result is his War Requiem, a work juxtaposing the traditional Latin Mass for the Dead with poetry written by World War I casualty Wilfred Owen. Killed in action in 1918, Owen has become revered as a war poet of note whose work touches upon the horrors experienced in the trenches. He delivered stories of nightmare and death,…

REVIEW: Die innere Sicherheit [The State I Am In] [2001]

2017/03/012017/03/02 Jared Mobarak

“She’s translating menus now too” With his theatrical debut Die innere Sicherheit [The State I Am In], German writer/director Christian Petzold proves his most recent pair of Barbara and Phoenix were born from a mind that had always been ready to tell stories of personal emotional strife within complex circumstances. The way in which he presents them have always been unlike anything you see in Hollywood too, their dissemination of information meticulously planned for maximum impact both in terms of the audience watching and his characters onscreen. We know from…

REVIEW: Toni Erdmann [2016]

2017/02/252017/02/25 Jared Mobarak

“That was real fear” I wasn’t sure what to think upon realizing it was Maren Ade who directed Toni Erdmann, the wild comedy that took Cannes by storm. Her previous film Alle Anderen was very much a drama—a fantastic one at that—and this switch brought intrigue. Now that I’ve finally seen it, however, it’s easy to see the transition wasn’t a difficult one to pull off. This father/daughter tale may have a lot of comedy, but its heart is still steeped in the dramatics of struggling to make love work.…

REVIEW: Fifty Shades Darker [2017]

2017/02/222017/02/23 Jared Mobarak

“Nothing lasts” Considering the Fifty Shades of Grey series is Twilight fan-fiction barely polished from its sordid internet origins, it shouldn’t be surprising that a villain besides dominant millionaire Christian Grey’s (Jamie Dornan) sadist side would arrive. Child molester Elena Lincoln (Kim Basinger) was alluded to in the first film, but not seen. So we anticipated this older woman who taught a fourteen year-old Christian about sex (propelling him onto the path he struggles to battle today) would receive a bigger role once Grey and naïve “I’m not a submissive!”…

REVIEW: Tanna [2016]

2017/02/212017/02/23 Jared Mobarak

“It’s time you learned the meaning of respect” There have been countless renditions of Romeo and Juliet during the past five hundred or so years and yet its themes still haven’t grown stale. Bentley Dean and Martin Butler‘s Tanna isn’t an official retelling considering its tale is based on a real life romance, but it’s nearly impossible not to think about the Shakespearian classic while watching. The events onscreen occurred in 1987 in the midst of civil unrest between two tribes of the Kastom roads. With colonialists and Christians arriving…

REVIEW: The Ninth Configuration [1980]

2017/02/20 Jared Mobarak

“You have to say, ‘Simon Says.’ Then we’ll do it.” The history behind William Peter Blatty‘s The Ninth Configuration adds a ton of insight into its ambitious yet lacking film adaptation. His original intent, for instance, was to create a comic novel. Blatty has even been quoted as saying he prefers the first version he wrote in 1966 entitled Twinkle, Twinkle, “Killer” Kane! It was only after working alongside William Friedkin on the set of The Exorcist that he chose to go back and do a rewrite. This retro-fitted evolution…

REVIEW: Logan [2017]

2017/02/162017/03/01 Jared Mobarak

“Does she remind you of anybody?” Calling any X-Men adaptation a gamble seems stupid considering the mass appeal comic book movies still hold at the box office, but Hollywood has a way of making those sentiments true when artists start bandying about the R-rated label. The standalone Wolverine films have seen what shying away from that challenge does, the first (Origins) proving a misguidedly silly throwaway and the second (The Wolverine) ending up little more than wasted potential or perhaps a casualty of studio interference. We’ve seen seventeen years of…

BERLINALE17 REVIEW: Ceux qui font les révolutions à moitié n’ont fait que se creuser un tombeau [Those Who Make Revolution Halfway Only Dig Their Own Graves] [2017]

2017/02/122017/02/13 Jared Mobarak

“People do not yet see they are miserable. We will show them!” There’s universality to Mathieu Denis and Simon Lavoie‘s Ceux qui font les révolutions à moitié n’ont fait que se creuser un tombeau [Those Who Make Revolution Halfway Only Dig Their Own Graves] even if it is very much a Québécois film. Marking their second collaboration together (after 2011’s Laurentie), the two were desperate to tell a tale about young radicals on the cusp of disillusionment after the failed Maple Spring protests (an infamous series of student demonstrations and…

REVIEW: Rocco e i suoi fratelli [Rocco and His Brothers] [1960]

2017/02/082017/02/09 Jared Mobarak

“But you mustn’t always forgive” More than a story about immigrants building a new life for themselves away from the home they wished could have been theirs forever, Luchino Visconti‘s Rocco e i suoi fratelli [Rocco and His Brothers] is an epic journey of hubris, love, and grand dreams falling short. In three hours we receive around four or five years of advancement and corruption within the Parondi family as opportunities are achieved as easily as they are squandered. We’re talking about five brothers who grew up in southern Italy’s…

REVIEW: Ennemis intérieurs [Enemies Within] [2016]

2017/02/082017/02/09 Jared Mobarak

“Between you and me, what’s the difference?” The definitive exchange in Hidden Figures—the one that defines America then and still today—is when Kirsten Dunst‘s personnel manager tells Octavia Spencer‘s yet-to-be-given-the-title supervisor, “Despite what you may think, I have nothing against y’all.” Spencer’s Dorothy Vaughan counters without missing a beat, “I know you probably believe that.” It’s such a perfect distillation of how racism permeates the very core of who we are to the point where we don’t even understand why we are racist. It happens all the time now, white…

REVIEW: La Femme et la TGV [2016]

2017/02/072017/02/09 Jared Mobarak

“I’ve never sent an internet and I never will” While its age-old conceit of a misunderstood curmudgeon discovering joy after being perpetually caught in a cycle of monotony is familiar, Timo von Gunten‘s cutely inspiring La femme et le TGV is in fact based on true events. The woman at its center is Elise (Jane Birkin), a baker left alone after her husband passed on, her son (Mathieu Bisson‘s Pierre) moved away, and her clientele gradually enticed by a cheap German bakery with unbeatable prices. She rides her bike to…