Like many drama films fascinated with issues of identity, moonlight explored it with higher degree of eloquence and it is breathtaking to behold. A coming-of-age drama film in the means of triptych, amalgamating art film with hood film, delicately and achingly features a black boy's odyssey to learn who he is, as he constantly trying to seek for some essentialism to his identity yet consistently fails. Not moralizing or preachy but lyrical, it focuses on individual story while dealing with universal themes. Blackness, masculinity, queerness, and vulnerability intersect to form a multidimensional artefact worth noting. While somehow I feel its episodic…it falters from chapter to chapter, with the changing of crew and stories. Also three questions, why Juan and teresa so nice to Chiron, why Juan suddenly dies ,and why the two boy suddenly kiss (in love)?
Important motif: water
From wiki: Water is often seen as cleansing and transformative and this is apparent in the film as well. Whether it be him swimming in the ocean or simply splashing water on his face, Chiron is constantly interacting with water. However, it is most notable that water is most often seen in the film in times of immense transition for Chiron. Throughout his life, Chiron resorts to water to bring him comfort eg taking baths when his mother is not home or swimming in the ocean with Juan. In the scene where Juan taught Little to swim, he explained to him the duality of water in relation to black existence, a concept addressed in Omise'eke Natasha Tinsley's "Black Atlantic, Queer Atlantic." The ocean is like a crosscurrent as Tinsley says,that can simultaneously be a place of inequality and exploitation as well as beauty and resistance. Tinsley describes how, "black queerness itself becomes a crosscurrent through which to view hybrid, resistant subjects and perhaps, black queers really have no ancestry except the black water. "[60] The water is either an environment that can destroy Chiron or allow him to triumph, and throughout the movie we see Chiron using the water to cope and find himself.
The cinematography is described as “fluid and seductive, deceptively mellow, and shot through with searing compassion”.
“Will strike plangent chords for anyone who has ever struggled with identity, or to find connections in a lonely world”.
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