Moonlight (2016)
That being said, the fact that Moonlight won Best Picture made me want to see it more than I already did, so I made a point of seeing it over spring break. And it was brutal. I usually don't struggle with giving films scores and ranking them, but Moonlight has me stymied. I have never had to struggle with a film, both with rating it and with just the film in general, more than this one. It has caused me to think about things I have never really had to consider and gave a lot of insight into a culture that I am not very familiar with. It's an incredibly rich film in its technical aspects, but in its emotion it is almost beyond comparison.
As far as watching the film itself is concerned, most of Moonlight is incredibly competent. The cinematography is gorgeous, making good use of lighting and contrast, and the editing and score make it have an almost symphonic feel. It works well for the film's structure because of its division into three different chapters, each feeling like a different movement of a larger work. They all have very distinct looks and tones, but they could not stand apart from the whole of the film. The acting is impeccable from all involved, especially Mahershala Ali, Janelle Monae, and Ashton Sanders. It's simple in its execution, but that makes the entire film feel more real. The same can be said of the writing, though I did have one major problem with it: Moonlight is an incredibly hard film to follow at times because who is who can get muddled with all of the time shifts. An example of this was in Kevin, one of the main character Chiron's closest friends. I had no idea he was even in the film's first act until after the movie was over, and that actually made parts of the film less impactful to me as I was watching it. This didn't happen often, but it was just prevalent enough to be bothersome. That being said, Moonlight is on the whole an incredibly well-made piece of cinematic art.
It's the whole thought-provoking thing that I think needs to be focused on with this film, though. Moonlight has made me struggle with a lot of preconceived notions about the African-American community that I have had for a long, long time. (warning: potential spoilers follow) The way Chiron's story unfolds makes it somewhat difficult to understand what happens in between the film's second and third acts off-screen, as he undergoes a transformation that makes very little sense to the viewer who has been following his story and development so far. This shift in trajectory made me think long and hard about what masculinity means to an African-American boy growing up in the projects. Chiron doesn't seem to fit into the stereotypical tropes of black masculinity which makes us root for him all the more; yet, in the end, he falls into the exact things that made his childhood so hard: gang life and drug dealing. The fact of the matter is, this makes a lot of sense after a lot of reflection because the only father figure he had in his life to demonstrate what masculinity is when growing up is Juan, played by Ali, who himself is a drug dealer. It just goes to show how much like our role models, whether that be parents or other mentors in our life.
This is what makes Moonlight really, really special. It depicts on film in beautiful ways just how much mentors matter and how much they impact our lives, showing both positive and negative effects. It might not be the best film I saw last year because of its occasionally muddy storytelling, but it might have some of the most important lessons to be told on screen in a long, long time. Moonlight does not aim to entertain; it aims to provoke thought, and it does so beautifully.
My recommendation: definitely watch it. It is very worthy of a couple hours of your time.
My grade: 92
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