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Old 04-13-2017, 11:26 AM   #210
teh b0lly!!1
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Moonlight

http://film-reviews-and-news.com/sit...nlight-ab-.jpg

one of my fav movie posters in recent years

how fortunate of me to be somebody who essentially lives under a rock and doesn't listen to new movie buzz (mostly) until i get to see it. i even managed to forget Moonlight was the movie who actually won the oscars, even though it was a scandalous affair that was all over teh internetz for at least a few weeks. so all that is to say, i went in knowing nothing about this film. not even what it's about. which is, as i always proclaim to everyone and anyone who begs me to leave them alone, always the absolute best way to go.

it really was hauntingly beautiful. out of all movie genres, coming of age films probably have the most powerful effect on me. it's always been like that. perhaps because i have my own fixation on that time period in my life and the awkwardness of growing up. but this film achieved so many beautiful things without ever coming off as cheap, or concocted, or fake. it didn't feel like one of those films that were made to generate oscar buzz (i.e Revenant, as great as that film was), but rather one of those films that the schmaltzy oscar folks happily latched onto because of its somewhat taboo subject matter.

tbh i didn't like finding out that this movie was 'teh big oscar winnar' for similar reasons that i mentioned in my embarrassingly long essay on '12 years a slave'. it's not quite the same, though - because this is a MUCH better film, and is deserving of all the praise it gets. it's just that it's such a 'small' movie, like a sparse song with only a guy singing and playing acoustic guitar, and to have it win every bigtime award kinda feels like P.C was forced unto it, and that's what i don't particularly care for. the hollywood machine is cynical.

BUT, to say again, none of this goes to say this movie is not top notch. there is something that differentiates a truly grade A movie from the rest of the pack, and you can tell immediately, like in the first 30 seconds of the film. always. first shot of this film where Juan simply pulls over in his car, i knew this was gonna be a good one. i don't know why. Buzzard probably knows the technical details that makes one swoon over a particular image.

as good as all other actors on this film were (and most of them really were great), i gotta talk about Juan first (Mahershala Ali). this dude was absolutely amazing. he fleshed out a character that's so warm and fatherly, so engaging, so deeply likable and yet so morally questionable, and he did it so fluidly and naturally as an actor - it really is quite remarkable. imho he's arguably the best character of the film (obvs other than Chiron) but he only does it in like 35 minutes of screen time.

like i said in lari's corporate movie thread - i can't recall the last time a film has made me care so deeply about its characters, so immediately. like, literally within the first 10 minutes of the film, i was totally invested in those characters. tbqh i don't know exactly what it is that makes this film have such a profound emotional core, but it just goes straight into the heart like an arrow. only movie that made me feel like that recently that i can recall is Blue Is The Warmest Color, and that's a massive three hour relationship arc film.

the cinematography is incredible here, and although not particularly 'fancy', it just works so beautifully well. in addition to the nice camerawork, they hired an (obviously very gifted) colorist, who gave each of the chapters a distinct 'look', emulating a certain type of analogue film: kodak, agfa, and fuji. what a brilliant, subtle addition. and the color palette is indeed striking (i swear i thought about this even before i read the trivia about this film). in general it's just a beautiful movie to look at. it's so inspiring to experience it when people marry the correct technical possibilities to the right narrative. and this is exactly it.

also, i just have to mention this sequence:



that's just fucking visual poetry. definitely my single fav moment of the film. the way it's shot with a highspeed camera, so that her entrance to the brightly pink lit room feels like she's getting sucked into it - a perfect representation of the allure of drug addiction. and then, Chiron turning the other way - which is the same direction on screen due to mirror imaging. just absolutely brilliant and heartbreaking.

the three actors portraying Chiron all did a really admirable job, and are all very convincing as the same person. they all share that essence. the delayed reaction time, the tame and borderline uncommunicative demeanor (even when Chirone is a transformed adult). the same history runs through all three of them. an impressive feat (even more so considering the three actors never met on set - an interesting directorial approach that obviously worked very well).

at first i was kinda bummed at the downbeat finish, but then i realized i wasn't disappointed with the way it ended at all - it was perfect. i was just sorry to part with these characters.

more to say but i'll sign off this one for now
yours truly,

 
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