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REVIEW: Gespenster [Ghosts] [2005]

2017/04/052017/04/06 Jared Mobarak

“And I walked towards the music” Three women caught in disparate existential crises are converging in Christian Petzold‘s Gespenster [Ghosts] to seek answers despite reality only supplying opportunity to exacerbate their already volatile shortcomings. Nina (Julia Hummer) is a late-teen orphan hopeful to discover an avenue towards a brighter future that will assist her in escaping the present. Francoise (Marianne Basler) is a middle-aged woman searching to retrieve something she lost years ago, her past-fueled desperation causing present strife. And Toni (Sabine Timoteo) is a displaced young woman hopping from…

REVIEW: 攻殻機動隊 [Kôkaku Kidôtai] [Ghost in the Shell] [1995]

2017/04/012017/04/02 Jared Mobarak

“What we see now is like a dim image in a mirror” Hype is a tough concept to combat. To tout a film like攻殻機動隊 [Kôkaku Kidôtai] [Ghost in the Shell] as one of the best animes ever created is to set-up expectations that cannot help but falter under the weight. Yet here I am—having watched Mamoru Oshii‘s seminal work thirty-plus years after its initial international release (hitting Japan, Britain, and the US within five months)—speechless as to just how thought provoking and unique it proves. Not a story about one…

REVIEW: Córki dancingu [The Lure] [2015]

2017/03/272018/05/03 Jared Mobarak

“Would you eat him?” Not all fairy tales must be for children as their lessons resonate with ages young and old. There’s a reason many original forms of such tales deliver more blood and horror than Disney counterparts—that sense of fear allowing adults to find dramatic value and kids a scare to remember the moral as more than cutesy romantic bliss. And as far as mythical creatures go, the idea that they can and will project their dominance upon humanity is natural. Just as we’ve taken over the mantel of…

REVIEW: Julieta [2016]

2017/03/212017/03/22 Jared Mobarak

“Remember, you don’t like goodbyes” It began as many things: an adaptation of Nobel Prize winning Canadian writer Alice Munro‘s three connected short stories from her book Runaway (“Chance,” “Soon,” and “Silence”), Pedro Almodóvar‘s English-language debut with its venue switching from Vancouver to New York, and a starring vehicle for Meryl Streep. But Julieta eventually became none of them. It’s still credited as an adaptation, yet Almodóvar would be the first to say that he took pains to make it his own not only in content but context with the…

REVIEW: Geride Kalanlar [Leftovers] [2017]

2017/03/20 Jared Mobarak

“Let’s hope it’s not her” We each possess a blind spot, one seeking to shield the horrors of life we know exist regardless. It manifests a sense of optimism in that we are safe because we live morally or that those we trust are inherently good. The opposite—to live in constant paranoia believing tragedy is inevitable—is not living at all. That’s how you imprison yourself, wall off your emotions, and ensure no one will get close enough to hurt you or deserve mourning. But we need physical contact and emotional…

REVIEW: 路边野餐 [Lù biān yě Cān] [Kaili Blues] [2016]

2017/03/17 Jared Mobarak

“You took a photo and stole my soul” While the calling card for Gan Bi‘s feature debut 路边野餐 [Lù biān yě Cān] [Kaili Blues] is its magnificent 41-minute long take, that scene is but a movie within a movie. Its brilliance is in the way it takes his main character Chen Sheng (played by the writer/director’s uncle Yongzhong Chen) and us away from the tragic reality of death, disappointment, and frustration. For the first thirty minutes (before the title card even arrives), we’re simply getting to know this ex-con doctor…

REVIEW: Grave [Raw] [2017]

2017/03/132017/03/14 Jared Mobarak

“Two fingers will make it come up easier” We strive to become ourselves in college thanks to that first taste of freedom after adolescence’s long haul packed tightly at home and within part-time jobs and/or classes alongside peers who simply don’t want to be there. This is when we’re able to let loose and buckle down simultaneously, acknowledging our unique personalities and drive to succeed at a vocation of our choosing. But this rite of passage is never completely devoid of expectations or outside pressures. Some must maintain grades for…

REVIEW: Der blaue Engel [The Blue Angel] [1930]

2017/03/11 Jared Mobarak

“Beware of blondes. They’re special, every one.” It was interesting to discover Josef von Sternberg‘s career started in Hollywood, directing many late-silent era pictures. I assumed the Austrian-born auteur began in Europe because he was the man behind the camera for Germany’s first feature-length talkie, Der blaue Engel [The Blue Angel]. But his helming it was actually at the behest of German star Emil Jannings who—despite reportedly clashing on set of their previous film together, The Last Command, where he won the Oscar for Best Actor—wanted Sternberg to guide him…

REVIEW: Kedi [2017]

2017/03/072017/03/08 Jared Mobarak

“Without the cat, Istanbul would lose part of its soul” I’m not an animal lover, a reality one subject in Ceyda Torun‘s documentary Kedi presumes means I cannot love anything. Such a sentiment is hyperbolic, but there’s something to be said about people’s interactions with animals exposing how they’ll interact with humans too. You don’t have to be an animal person to understand their role in others’ lives or the fact that they too are living, breathing entities. At a certain point you must reach down and give a dog…

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.…