[Analysis × Thoughts × Spoilers] Moonlight [It runs deep]

Hello!

This time I’m going to ramble on about Moonlight at rather more length than usual — analysis and impressions both!

I actually saw this one at a preview screening run by Filmarks!

So if anything in here sounds unusually high-minded, it’s borrowed from director Koji Fukada’s talk at that screening lol

And congratulations on Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay!!!

I was surprised to find Brad Pitt is an executive producer.

Moonlight

Synopsis

His name is Chiron; everyone calls him Little. Shy by nature, taunted at school with slurs, singled out day after day by the bullies. Chiron doesn’t even understand what the word means, and his one and only friend is his classmate Kevin. By high school nothing has changed — and then, one night on a beach lit by the moon, Chiron and Kevin touch something in each other for the first time…
— Filmarks

The story follows Chiron across three eras: Little (around primary school age), Chiron (high school) and Black (adulthood).

Each era is genuinely simple. In the Little era, the bullied Chiron meets Juan, a drug dealer (the Best Supporting Actor win), and is shaped by him. In the Chiron era he kisses Kevin, and then it ends with him arrested after taking revenge on a bully. In the Black era the shy Chiron has changed completely: we open on him working as a dealer, and it closes with a kiss with his old friend Kevin.

What you need to know going in

You need some understanding of Black communities in America.

Specifically the low-income parts of those communities. Drugs run through them, and being gay isn’t especially rare — it’s registered with something like an “oh, right, he’s gay” shrug. But not being rare doesn’t mean it’s welcome, and it makes you a target for bullying.

The Little era

Chiron is the bullied kid. And the community is entirely Black. All of that tells you this is a poor neighbourhood where safety isn’t exactly guaranteed.

Juan’s first appearance is great lol

There is no reading him as an honest citizen — your first thought is, oh no, this kid’s about to be killed lol

But Juan and his partner turn out to be genuinely good people. It’s never said in a single line of dialogue, but you get the sense they don’t know any life other than dealing. That they do it because there’s nothing else. Knowing it’s wrong and doing it anyway — that felt real.

And on top of that, Chiron’s mother is an addict, and she buys from Juan… and yet Juan tells her to stop using! Even though he’s the one selling it lol

The swimming scene with Juan is lovely too.

The father-and-son quality of it shows you how much this means to a boy with no father of his own.

Juan’s lines tell you nothing whatsoever about his past, and yet the sense that he’s carrying a great deal comes through — which is exactly what wins you a Best Supporting Actor.

The Chiron era

His mother has become an addict beyond anyone’s help, which is devastating… so people really don’t change.

Chiron is still shy, still being bullied. It rings true.

Juan has died. Some kind of turf conflict, maybe? We’re not told.

The scene where he snaps is superb! How to put it — something inside him breaks.

It’s almost supernatural, isn’t it! No thought for what comes after, just I am going to kill you lol

And the scene on the beach under the moonlight.

Awkward and bittersweet. Beautifully shot, too.

The Black era

Chiron is a drug dealer!!!

Whaaaaat.

Apparently he learned it inside, though everything that got him to that position is skipped over.

He even looks like Juan now, seriously hard-faced — but inside, it seems, nothing has changed.

As for his mother, she’s off the drugs and in a facility. She’s taken a hard look at herself, and she and Chiron make peace. I was glad of that.

We’ve had three different Chirons across three eras, and the expression in the eyes is identical in all three!!

And then Kevin gets in touch.

Kevin apparently did time himself for something minor after all that, and now he has his own restaurant.

From where Kevin is standing, it’s: Chiron, mate… why are you dealing?

But honestly — Kevin is kind! A warm person!

The music in this stretch is romantic too, the kind that pulls the past back up.

Overall

Personally I found this film very understated, and I did think the Best Picture win had a bit of politics in it lol

But hearing Koji Fukada talk it through, I came round to liking it a good deal.

First: important things get skipped.

There were a lot of “wait?! You’re skipping that and going to the next era?!” moments lol

Juan’s death. How exactly Chiron became a dealer.

As filmmaking, that takes real nerve.

You can also read it as the film refusing, as far as possible, to show you anything only the person themselves could know.

And in real life, I think that’s exactly what friends and acquaintances are like. Someone you knew from the next class over went off the rails, a friend got into trouble — you never actually know how they got there. Only they do. You meet a friend after a few years, or a few decades, and often they look completely different, and there is no way for you to know why. Moonlight summons that feeling right up.

The Black era. The restaurant runs long lol

You get to feel the time Chiron spends waiting on Kevin lol

Genuinely interesting.

Every other era moves briskly, and this stretch is oddly long lol

That’s the director’s craft.

And that restless, fidgety quality from the car scene near the end through to the kitchen? He leans on it hard, and it’s real lol

Ughhhh lol It makes you squirm watching it lol

Moonlight is almost too good at observing life. It captures what “ordinary” actually is, extremely well. And because of that, it shows you how plain our own lives are. I intend to live mine loudly rather than plainly, mind lol On top of that, the way it’s shot and the way it leaves things hanging has something in common with Japanese cinema. Or maybe not.

There are things Moonlight and La La Land share, too.

First, the directors’ ages.

Moonlight is Barry Jenkins (b. 1979), La La Land is Damien Chazelle (b. 1985).

Both taking Academy Awards in their thirties — cinema is in safe hands lol

Still, so young. Remarkable. What kind of lives have they lived?

The second thing: the use of colour!

Both of them really do use beautiful colour. Personally I wonder whether the two directors watched a lot of the same films growing up lol

Moonlight and La La Land, both highly regarded for their visuals — please do see them at least once!