War | www.jaredmobarak.com

REVIEW: 火垂るの墓 [Hotaru no haka] [Grave of the Fireflies] [1988]

2018/04/192020/04/10 Jared Mobarak

Please stay home with me. Everything I read and heard about Isao Takahata‘s Hotaru no haka [Grave of the Fireflies] appeared to want to prepare me for a solemnly tragic tale that couldn’t be completed without tears streaming down my face. I took this train of thought as a badge of honor—preparing its emotionality and authenticity towards WWII’s futility and collateral damage. This is the reaction most war films hope to conjure with many going out of their way to manipulate the reception via story, score, or imagery. Reducing this…

REVIEW: 12 Strong [2018]

2018/01/172020/04/13 Jared Mobarak

There are no right choices here. War films generally come in two varieties: a gray introspective look at its emotional and psychological cost and black and white jingoistic propaganda. The former is generally acclaimed as award worthy while the latter is dumped during winter months so its target audience of NRA-loving Republicans in American flag tees has something to watch during a drama-heavy, liberally slanted awards season. (I jest.) This doesn’t, however, inherently mean one route is “better” despite valid arguments to the contrary. And for those who vehemently disagree,…

REVIEW: この世界の片隅に [Kono sekai no katasumi ni] [In This Corner of the World] [2016]

2017/12/202020/04/17 Jared Mobarak

Was I always daydreaming? It’s starts as a cutely surreal slice of life in 1930s Japan as Suzu (Non) and her flights of fancy take the spotlight. The young girl loves to draw and daydream—the latter often leaving her with time lost in a place unknown. At one point she even finds herself with a strange boy in the basket of a monster, her quick thinking to put the latter to sleep allowing for hers and the former’s escape. You wouldn’t be faulted for scratching your head as you also…

REVIEW: This is Congo [2018]

2017/11/132020/04/22 Jared Mobarak

The one who should keep you safe is the one who can kill you. Documentarian Daniel McCabe wastes no time getting to the point of his film This is Congo with the words of DRC National Army Colonel Mamadou Ndala. This smiling dreamer of peace and unity speaks about his home like a philosopher as far as its riches (nature, minerals, and beauty) providing its people pure joy from God despite the contrasting prevalence of misery brought by the greed of men seeking to wrest it away for selfish gain…

REVIEW: Dunkirk [2017]

2017/07/172017/07/18 Jared Mobarak

“He may never be himself again” War is often depicted as a quantifiable number of those who survived and those who did not. Many films choose this route, picking a battle to show the firefight’s chaos and cost. We remember the Battle of Gettysburg and D-Day as turning points, insane offensives that wrought heavy casualties just as they provided a newfound and tangible hope for victory. It’s glory or despair that’s highlighted depending on whose perspective the story adheres because we want to witness the emotional gray areas of melancholy…

REVIEW: The Beguiled [2017]

2017/06/292017/06/30 Jared Mobarak

“I didn’t want you to be misled” There’s a lot to like about Don Siegel‘s 1971 adaptation of Thomas Cullinan‘s A Painted Devil. Unfortunately, there’s just as much left wanting. It built towards a tense finale of malicious intent, the kind that’s able to turn what was a simple wartime drama into a metaphorical representation of fear and paranoia pitting man against woman in a battle of physical strength opposite will. Where it goes wrong, however, is in the decision to draw its lead character as the unequivocal bad guy.…

REVIEW: The Beguiled [1971]

2017/06/28 Jared Mobarak

“Old enough for kisses” If you’ve ever wondered what would happen inside a Confederate girls seminary (boarding school) unwittingly thrust into the position of harboring a wounded Union soldier during the Civil War, Don Siegel‘s The Beguiled seeks to provide some dark answers. Based on Thomas Cullinan‘s novel A Painted Devil and adapted by Albert Maltz and Irene Kamp (despite the use of pseudonyms after Claude Traverse‘s uncredited rewrite), the film focuses on Corporal John McBurney’s (Clint Eastwood) precarious situation. He’s the enemy—a man two students would let die for…

REVIEW: Under sandet [Land of Mine] [2015]

2017/04/182017/04/19 Jared Mobarak

“I’ll make it home” War is a horrific reality that forces people into doing terrible things. Everyone sees him/herself as being on the side of “good” and “righteous”—look at the discrepancies from one history book to another in how education systems describe certain events to shine one’s own nation in a rosier tint than it might actually deserve. There are of course exceptions, though. This idea obviously doesn’t work in regards to genocide, but I don’t think any Germans today (white supremacists excepted) believe Hitler did God’s work or are…

REVIEW: Frantz [2016]

2017/04/112017/04/11 Jared Mobarak

“I don’t want to forget him” Loosely inspired by Ernst Lubitsch‘s post-WWI-set film Broken Lullaby (itself an adaptation of Maurice Rostand‘s play), François Ozon‘s latest Frantz similarly deals with a French soldier searching for the family of a German casualty of war. It doesn’t, however, focus upon this foreign stranger entering the nation his army just recently defeated, the pain still raw with grudges strong. Instead it centers on young Anna (Paula Beer), the unfortunate fiancé of this fallen German, Frantz Hoffmeister (Anton von Lucke). A shadow of the woman…

REVIEW: Sand Castle [2017]

2017/04/102017/04/21 Jared Mobarak

“A war story can’t be true unless it’s got some shame attached to it” Similar to lead character PVT. Matt Ocre (Nicholas Hoult), screenwriter Chris Roessner joined the United States Army in July of 2001 to serve in the Reserves and earn college money. Two months later 9/11 changed everything. Suddenly he was thrust into a full-scale war in the Middle East and he needed to steel himself to that fact. He wasn’t in the Special Forces, Navy SEALs or Marines—he was just a soldier walking onto the frontlines like…

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,…