Film Reviews | www.jaredmobarak.com

REVIEW: Time Out of Mind [2015]

2015/10/052015/10/07 Jared Mobarak

“She’s coming back” One of the easiest things we can do in modern society is marginalize strangers. To laugh and assume we know what has transpired to place some nameless soul in his/her current position only takes a second devoid of context whereas beginning a conversation requires so much more. We reject compassion because it necessitates effort when we’re too busy dealing with our own troubles to carve out time for someone else. That leaves two options: ignore his/her plight altogether or transform him/her into some form of personal entertainment.…

REVIEW: Driven [2015]

2015/10/052017/02/14 Jared Mobarak

“You need to start being there for him” Writer/director Ali Y. Akarcesme‘s latest short Driven is full of questions that may or may not need answers. It deals with Nicole (Sandy Pasquale) and her son Josh (Joseph Minogue) trying to accept a new dynamic at home without the man who had been playing husband and father when not drinking or yelling. She has retreated inward, passing the time baking and taking care of the house while awaiting a buyer for the large truck parked in her driveway. Josh holds out…

REVIEW: Pan [2015]

2015/10/032015/10/07 Jared Mobarak

“Is this Canada?” For whatever reason the American public has been fascinated with “origin” stories attempting to give meaning to some of the most iconic adversarial relationships in literary and film history. It’s not enough for the Wicked Witch of the West to hate Glinda or Superman and Lex Luthor to be arch-nemeses—we need to see how those relationships devolved from friendship. Sometimes people just hate each other, though, and there doesn’t need to be an Oz the Great and Powerful or “Smallville” to explain how once-friends turn ugly. Ostensibly…

REVIEW: Pawn Sacrifice [2015]

2015/10/012015/10/02 Jared Mobarak

“I’m searching for the truth” I’ve always been fascinated by Bobby Fischer due to his vanishing rather than anything he accomplished at a chessboard. I’ve never been good at the game, yet I respect its complexity. The greats literally memorize past matches and maneuvers, so in-tune with the playing field that they can play out loud with nothing more than words. Fischer was a great—the youngest Grandmaster in history and the first American-born World Champion. Like most geniuses, however, the strain of intellect, pressure, and success brought with it a…

TIFF15 REVIEW: Der Nachtmahr [2016]

2015/09/302015/11/09 Jared Mobarak

“What do you want from me?” In great Lost Highway-era David Lynch fashion, visual artist turned filmmaker Akiz‘s Der Nachtmahr switches from linear reality to seamlessly disorienting crosscuts between life and dream. It occurs when soon-to-be eighteen year old Tina (Carolyn Genzkow) passes out drunk while peeing in the woods outside a secret rave full of heavy electronica and piercing white strobe light (a disclaimer cautions epileptics while cajoling everyone else to increase the volume). We don’t realize she’s fainted—and honestly this dizzy spell might be the nightmare instead of…

REVIEW: Sleeping with Other People [2015]

2015/09/292015/09/30 Jared Mobarak

“Mousetrap” It has to overcome a pretty shaky start—mostly due to leads Jason Sudeikis (Jake) and Alison Brie (Lainey) playing Columbia undergrads—but Leslye Headlands‘ comedy Sleeping with Other People does prevail as quite the breath of fresh rom/com air. The plot isn’t groundbreaking, reconnecting two people twelve or so years after losing their virginity together for platonic shenanigans masking an underlying romance, but it does it with as much care for their tumultuous psyches as it does the inherent humor. When these two characters get on a roll their rapport…

REVIEW: Total Performance [2015]

2015/09/29 Jared Mobarak

“You’re never going to see me again” The premise behind Sean Meehan‘s latest short is fascinating with its titular business Total Performance providing a service that supplies actors who spar with customers seeking a dress rehearsal for whatever difficult conversation they’ve yet to work themselves up to starting. We meet a distraught husband in need of a stand-in for his cheating wife so he can air the frustration he hasn’t been able to direct at her, a gentleman working through the crisis of conscience of having to fire his best…

TIFF15 REVIEW: Peur de rien [Parisienne] [2016]

2015/09/272015/09/27 Jared Mobarak

“For now everything is ugly” Many deflect from it, but a writer/director’s intent can change the viewer’s outlook on his/her film. Danielle Arbid‘s fictional coming-of-age drama about a college-aged immigrant from Lebanon to France (Manal Issa‘s Lina) is one containing many new acquaintances able to help her find the freedom she covets but never found back home. It can prove convenient because of this since she never truly hits rock bottom like many in her situation do. Instead there’s always a guardian angel watching out for her—sometimes manipulated and sometimes…

TIFF15 REVIEW: Waves ’98 [2015]

2015/09/25 Jared Mobarak

“It feels like everything is stuck in a loop” Downtown Beirut is Waves ’98‘s lead character Omar’s (Elie Bassila)—a virtual, teenage stand-in for writer/director Ely Dagher—”white whale”. It’s a world he has yet to experience close-up, relegated to peering over and through concrete buildings from his safe suburban rooftop at a city split in two between the Muslim West and Christian East. Safety comes at the price of monotony and boredom, a perpetual news cycle of chaos and talk for peace that does nothing but instill fear or posit empty…

REVIEW: অপরাজিত [Aparajito] [The Unvanquished] [1956]

2015/09/242015/10/20 Jared Mobarak

“He will come if he wants to” After the huge success of Pather Panchali, it would have been strange for Satyajit Ray not to continue Apu’s saga into Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay‘s second novel অপরাজিত [Aparajito] [The Unvanquished]. The only reason I could see him stopping was the fact that the boy’s coming-of-age contains as much tragedy or more as his early childhood. If you remember, the first film follows his finding his grandmother dead, watching his sister die, and being left homeless once a huge storm destroys their family estate. With…

REVIEW: Cléo de 5 à 7 [Cleo from 5 to 7] [1962]

2015/09/232015/10/20 Jared Mobarak

“You shouldn’t use the word ‘despair’” It’s crazy to think that Cléo de 5 à 7 [Cleo from 5 to 7] was just the second feature length fictional narrative French auteur Agnès Varda ever made. The maturity in minimal storytelling, singular visual style, and existential metaphor surrounding death’s value that spans classes are stunning to behold. While following Cléo (Corinne Marchand) in virtual real time for an hour and a half as she distracts herself with shopping and work before calling her doctor for potentially devastating test results, we pass…