Moonlight

Tailor-made black Oscar-bait. An attempt at a great little film that tries to portray the plight of an exceptional individual on the edge of standard society and his integration into mainstream life despite his gay "handicap". Not that the narrative was impersonal and the camera twists unimpressive, but as a gay-themed film, Brokeback Mountain was a class act. As a story of childhood and growing up in a black community, it's good, but the really resonant scenes are few and far between, and there are quite a few clichés, especially when it comes to the outlining of the secondary characters (a bad mother, problems with classmates). Thumbs up especially for the solid performances and interestingly laid out story stages, where paradoxically the most important events happen outside the viewer. There are thematically similar films that are far fuller in feeling and more nuanced in their relationships. (04/08/2017)

A homosexual black man in a successful film? Some honest Czechs will pop a vein. To me Moonlight is simply a good film and a quality drama. Though its theme naturally works like automatic award bait, I didn’t feel any cynicism or insincerity from it. It makes for a pretty unpleasant viewing that is painful in many ways, but to be fully satisfied I needed a somewhat stronger final catharsis. (02/05/2017)

If there’s one thing you have to grant to this film, it is the fact that Barry Jenkins is a very skilled director, who took on board with him James Laxton, who is s an equally skilled director of photography. And even though all this skill goes hand in hand with the actors, whose performances aren’t bad at all, my biggest issue is with the topic, which is not uninteresting, but I was more into it from the perspective of the Oscar nominations. You see, it’s really hard to me to follow the life fate of young Chiron, who lives in a society that is totally beyond me. There’s nobody in this movie I can understand and I simply watch young Chiron, who has trouble expressing himself and who’s simply observing everything as if from a distance. He probably can’t even see that the things that are going on around him are not ideal, but he can do nothing about it himself, so he’s simply trying to adjust, but despite that he wants to form an opinion of his own. A strange film, well made, but to me it was very inaccessible. It was really hard for me to find any emotion that I could at least catch on to. (02/14/2017)

I liked Manchester by the Sea better. It was emotionally richer and the relationships were rendered in more detail. Moonlight speaks of delicate things in a harsh environment in a commendably delicate way, but also too elliptically. It uses the poetics of artsy visuals, slow motion and static face shots where it could have expressed itself openly. I recognize the director’s skills in guiding the actors as well as the actors’ quality performances. I enjoyed watching the lead character’s transformation in three different stages of his life, examining his inner development. But I’m unmoved. The Oscar fervor about Moonlight is more political than deserved, a reaction to last year’s racial fiasco. Despite that, it’s good that it happened, if only because of the current moods in the world spread by its leaders. (02/27/2017)

I didn't know what to expect from this film at all, and I must say that in the end, I was perhaps hoping for something more. However, it once again confirms that even a slow pace can engage viewers and keep them captivated throughout. An intriguing character development, where it's almost a pity it wasn't captured in a real actor's adolescence like in the case of the film Boyhood. (02/12/2017)