Category: Shorts

TIFF14 REVIEW: Oh Lucy! [2014]

Jared Mobarak

“Don’t get involved if she calls” You know you’re in a rut when your sister calls to tell you not to talk to your niece and you do everything you can to do just that in the hopes of some semblance of excitement—or at the very least change. So chain-smoking Setsuko (Kaori Momoi) ditches work at the much younger Yu’s (Rian Nagashima) request to grab dinner and hear her proposition despite the warning. Needing money, Yu is looking for someone to take her place in an English course so she…

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TIFF14 REVIEW: Dondurma [Ice Cream] [2014]

Jared Mobarak

“I’ll take whatever you have” Instead of Scott Joplin‘s “The Entertainer” signifying an oncoming ice cream truck here in the States, Turkish children must keep an ear open for the whir of a motorcycle. No matter how engaged in a game of soccer the young village boys are, they are off to the races as soon as the prospect of this rarity of sweets arrives. Being that they have no money—and that the visiting purveyor knows this to be true—the barter system comes into effect in order for iron pipes,…

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TIFF14 REVIEW: Vokseværk [Growing Pains] [2014]

Jared Mobarak

“Do you think she likes this?” There is no subtly in the animal instinct category of metaphor where Tor Fruergaard‘s Vokseværk [Growing Pains] is concerned. Centering on a teenage boy (Elliott Crosse Hove‘s Fabian), this R-rated cartoon compares an adolescent’s sexual urges with that of a dog ready and willing to mount every female in heat he can find. What do we do to quell such a storm in man’s best friend? Castration. Luckily for newcomer in town Felicia (Amalie Lindegård), Fabian’s veterinarian mother Birte (Iben Hjejle) specializes in just…

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TIFF14 REVIEW: Chop My Money [2014]

Jared Mobarak

“This is my photograph for my family” Give a street kid in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo some attention with a camera and he’s going to provide you the type of footage perfectly suited for rockstar treatment. Is Theo Anthony glorifying the deeds of Manu Bahiti “Patient” Jean Christophe, warning us outsiders of the hard life children live hustling, or simply giving an unfiltered glimpse of this new Wild West? Chop My Money is a little of all three in descending order because you know Patient and his crew…

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TIFF14 REVIEW: Prends-moi [Take Me] [2014]

Jared Mobarak

“You’re needed in the intimacy room” Short film collaborators Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette and André Turpin-this is their third work as a duo-focus Prends-moi [Take Me] on a job very few are fit to complete. I’ve volunteered with handicapped people as a bowling scorekeeper and have seen a wide variety of group home workers come and go with differing levels of compassion and care towards those in their ward. For every companion sitting down on the lane to watch, cheer on, and engage there were three roaming around on their phones as…

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TIFF14 REVIEW: Day 40 [2014]

Jared Mobarak

“God is one crazy bitch” Who doesn’t like a little revisionist history? Especially when it concerns the sanctity of the Bible—I think that’s my favorite kind. Because why did that book become this whole end-all/be-all document of our existence, morality, sin, and promise? Who the hell were Peter, Paul, and Mary besides 1960s folk singers with some kick-ass songs? Why can’t director Sol Friedman and writer Evan Morgan‘s voices be just as important when it comes to describing how we humans came to be? The answer is: they can. And…

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TIFF14 REVIEW: Last Night [2014]

Jared Mobarak

“Like a dirty little badger” Sometimes you have to wonder where an artist’s head was when coming up with the idea for their latest work. I can see Arlen Konopaki and Christian Capozzoli giggling over a couple beers about how funny it would be if two roommates were engaged in a debate about whether one masturbated on the face of the other while he was sleeping the night before. It’s kind of a brilliant conceit when you think about it too because the situation is so absurd that no one…

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TIFF14 REVIEW: Entangled [2014]

Jared Mobarak

“Are you sure that’s the place?” Anyone willing to dive down the rabbit hole of quantum entanglement to exist in two places simultaneously is doing so for a reason. You may delude yourself into believing its for science or the simple fact of proving it can be done, but there’s a personal secret hiding beneath any ideas of social application. Why else wouldn’t the experimenter let his girlfriend in on the challenge? Why would he (Aaron Abrams‘ Malcolm) allow her (Christine Horne‘s Erin) to witness the incoherent, institutionalized ramblings of…

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TIFF14 REVIEW: Luk’Luk’I: Mother [2014]

Jared Mobarak

“Where have you gone sweet innocence?” I’m lost and it’s not a feeling I want to have when the TIFF Short Cuts Canada programmer calls Wayne Wapeemukwa‘s debut short Luk’Luk’I: Mother “narratively sophisticated”. That’s a description that will either boost your ego when the work speaks to you clearly or demoralize your intellect when you find comprehension is completely absent. Those words are doing the latter for me now as I unsuccessfully try to reconcile the synopsis with what I saw. Just the idea that a “full-time mother and part-time…

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TIFF14 REVIEW: Liompa [2014]

Jared Mobarak

“We’ve gained the control and lost the music” Adapted from the 1928 short story by Yuri Olesha, Elizabeth Lazebnik‘s Liompa gives us a glimpse at the differing stages of life. We may only hear from the dying Ponomarev (Aleksey Serebryakov) as he refuses to cope with the fact he’s lost all control over the world around him, but there are also two more characters one could see as stepping stones of evolution still caught in the hold of reality’s grip. Alexander (Stepan Serebryakov)—for example—has just come of the age where…

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TIFF14 REVIEW: Mynarski chute mortelle [Mynarski Death Plummet] [2014]

Jared Mobarak

“Save yourself” Pilot Officer Andrew Mynarski is a bit of a legend in his hometown of Winnipeg, Manitoba and it would appear his country of Canada as well. The last World War II airman recipient of the Victorian Cross—the British and Commonwealth forces’ most prestigious award for bravery—this hero valiantly attempted to save the life of fellow soldier Pat Brophy before succumbing to the flames of their crashing aircraft. Brophy would survive the ordeal and eventually relay the story of Mynarski’s selflessness, cementing a legacy of numerous honors donning his…

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