Moonlight

A homosexual black man in a successful film? Some honest Czechs will pop a vein. To me Moonlight is simply a good film and a quality drama. Though its theme naturally works like automatic award bait, I didn’t feel any cynicism or insincerity from it. It makes for a pretty unpleasant viewing that is painful in many ways, but to be fully satisfied I needed a somewhat stronger final catharsis. (05.02.2017)

A two-part film. Almost everything that is remarkable about it has its downside. Apart from the acting performances, which are the strongest thing that Moonlight has to offer. The division into three parts and the reliance on the outlets come out alternately, in some places an impressive tension arises between the unspoken cause and effect, whilst elsewhere the film feels a little broken or leaky. Laxton's camera, which can conjure up an intoxicating vortex trajectory, sometimes slides into mannerist conventional details. The music sometimes dries out, but sometimes it goes great with what is not directly said (the scene in the restaurant in the third part). It is a problematic emancipation film on both levels - it creates the main character, who is more approximate than captivating. And it speaks of the identities of a minority without deriving them from its relationship to the oppressive majority (like 12 Years a Slave) or making this relationship a main topic at all. Rather than a radical social image, Moonlight is a lyrical portrait of personality changes - and this is where it has considerable limits. The experience from the film is so very inspiring and unsatisfactory... Respect mixed with doubts. (23.02.2017)

I liked Manchester by the Sea better. It was emotionally richer and the relationships were rendered in more detail. Moonlight speaks of delicate things in a harsh environment in a commendably delicate way, but also too elliptically. It uses the poetics of artsy visuals, slow motion and static face shots where it could have expressed itself openly. I recognize the director’s skills in guiding the actors as well as the actors’ quality performances. I enjoyed watching the lead character’s transformation in three different stages of his life, examining his inner development. But I’m unmoved. The Oscar fervor about Moonlight is more political than deserved, a reaction to last year’s racial fiasco. Despite that, it’s good that it happened, if only because of the current moods in the world spread by its leaders. (27.02.2017)

If there’s one thing you have to grant to this film, it is the fact that Barry Jenkins is a very skilled director, who took on board with him James Laxton, who is s an equally skilled director of photography. And even though all this skill goes hand in hand with the actors, whose performances aren’t bad at all, my biggest issue is with the topic, which is not uninteresting, but I was more into it from the perspective of the Oscar nominations. You see, it’s really hard to me to follow the life fate of young Chiron, who lives in a society that is totally beyond me. There’s nobody in this movie I can understand and I simply watch young Chiron, who has trouble expressing himself and who’s simply observing everything as if from a distance. He probably can’t even see that the things that are going on around him are not ideal, but he can do nothing about it himself, so he’s simply trying to adjust, but despite that he wants to form an opinion of his own. A strange film, well made, but to me it was very inaccessible. It was really hard for me to find any emotion that I could at least catch on to. (14.02.2017)

Social, racial, and sexual themes are targeted too blatantly, in response to all the criticisms aimed at the previous Oscars. The viewer must root for Chiron, whether they want to or not, because his most crucial scene partner is surprisingly the overacting Naomie Harris. However, I also have an issue with the overall form. It is cleverly chosen, although I cannot decide whether its partial imitation of Richard Linklater's Boyhood is an advantage or a disadvantage. It remains painfully empty when clumsily skipping over plot fragments that interest me much more than the main character's relationship with his unteachable mother. I am still struggling with Moonlight because, while I was enchanted by the exceptional performances of Mahershala Ali and André Holland, they were unable to shake off the loud impression of drama for the sake of drama. (06.02.2017)