Moonlight Review

I am sat on holiday looking at the sea, a thing that is so entwined in the poetry of Moonlight, and I thought that with its DVD release it was about time to talk about this year's Best Picture winner- in a review that's been more delayed than the Queen's Speech. ( I have to pause here as I have been overcome with a sense of dread at the political goings on in the UK. I share a DUP meme, like a concerned tweet about the single market, go to get a strawberry daquiri, and feel instantly better).

So let's not ramble a sentence longer and let's bask in Moonlight. The film tells the story of Chiron in tryptic. Each chapter is titled after the name Chiron is identified by at that point and we see him grow from a child to a man. Chiron's life is marked by the struggles he faces due to his socioeconomic status, his race, and his sexuality. The story is composed masterfully, an understated symphony. My only qualm is that I wish the film was longer. I was so immersed in the Moonlight world that being pulled out of it so suddenly felt like getting whiplash.

To me this film feels like a modern day William Blake poem. It handles such prescient and harrowing issues with a sense of lyricism that produces in the viewer a melancholy that is truly universal. From the script, to the cinematography, to the soundtarck- it is all poetic. The staurated colours of Miami feel feverish and the cool blues of the ocean, sublime. This dreamlike atmosphere allows the film to tap into the abstract and leaves you with the sense that it knows something true about the human condition. Just as adeptly it portrays the societal wrongdoings that blight the life of Chiron. This is why it reminds me of Blake- and it definitely left me with the same sense of awe.

I wanted to write a little about something Mark Kermode discussed in his reflections on the film's Oscars win. That this film has won a Best Picture Oscar, the pinnacle of mainstream success is amazing. It is a film about a character who is representative of a number of different minorities that often go ignored, yet here it is being crowned Best Picture in the heart of Hollywood. It is a promising signal that despite how fractured society may seem, the popular arts are on a forward trajectory- rewriting a route that's calling at progressive stops only.

Moonlight is a classic in the making. It is a movie that provides a contemplative space and allows the viewer to ruminate on the emotive impact that it provides. It will captivate anyone who watches and have you bathing in the strange glow of humanity, with all its cruelty and kindness.