Moonlight

Okay, so in 2017, all it takes to win the Oscar for Best Picture is to crudely edit three stages in the life of an uninteresting black gay man, intersperse them with a string of the most overused social clichés about a junkie mother, a wise mentor/dealer, or school bullying, and gild them with a poetic scene about being cleansed in the waves of the sea; all of that without breaking down a single line of the narrative so that the viewer would have a chance to become attached to the main character or to know what is actually being primarily communicated to them. For a story about coming to terms with homosexuality, the film has hardly any sexual tension (well, thank God, actually) and it’s too telegraphic and unsurprising for a confession about adapting to one's environment. The only really pleasing things are the believable actors, led by Naomie Harris, who ironically would be the only one deserving an Oscar, and the polished cinematography, whose synergy with the chilling soundtrack builds a good 80% of the overall depressing atmosphere. My eye was especially pleased by the beauty Janelle Monáe, although here she looked a bit too..... cold. Very weak 3* (02/27/2017)

8 (!!!) Oscar nominations for this? You've gotta be kidding me. My giving this such a low rating might surprise you, but when a film is nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture, my expectations naturally go up. If I had casually watched the movie outside of the Oscar season, I might not have been so harsh in my review, but now I just can't help it. I'll start with the positives. Ali's performance is great. And that’s about it, because what follows is a list of negatives. The theme is okay, although seen a thousand times and filmed a million times before, but fine. What was an unpleasant surprise was the performance of Naomie Harris, which was simply lousy and did not fit the movie at all, and her Oscar (and Golden Globes and BAFTA) nomination is actually a total insult to all the unnominated actresses. Alright, let’s just get this over with. Absolutely illogical, some of the storylines fall flat, some would-be artistically effective cuts, a desperately pandering soundtrack (déjà vu of last year's Danish Girl). I could go on. In the competition of similar-style movies, Moonlight clearly loses to Hidden Figures. Above all, what I want to say is that all the nominations that Moonlight received after the "all-white Oscars" controversy would have been a hundred times more deserved by Straight Outta Compton last year. (02/22/2017)

Social, racial, and sexual themes are targeted too blatantly, in response to all the criticisms aimed at the previous Oscars. The viewer must root for Chiron, whether they want to or not, because his most crucial scene partner is surprisingly the overacting Naomie Harris. However, I also have an issue with the overall form. It is cleverly chosen, although I cannot decide whether its partial imitation of Richard Linklater's Boyhood is an advantage or a disadvantage. It remains painfully empty when clumsily skipping over plot fragments that interest me much more than the main character's relationship with his unteachable mother. I am still struggling with Moonlight because, while I was enchanted by the exceptional performances of Mahershala Ali and André Holland, they were unable to shake off the loud impression of drama for the sake of drama. (02/06/2017)

A two-part film. Almost everything that is remarkable about it has its downside. Apart from the acting performances, which are the strongest thing that Moonlight has to offer. The division into three parts and the reliance on the outlets come out alternately, in some places an impressive tension arises between the unspoken cause and effect, whilst elsewhere the film feels a little broken or leaky. Laxton's camera, which can conjure up an intoxicating vortex trajectory, sometimes slides into mannerist conventional details. The music sometimes dries out, but sometimes it goes great with what is not directly said (the scene in the restaurant in the third part). It is a problematic emancipation film on both levels - it creates the main character, who is more approximate than captivating. And it speaks of the identities of a minority without deriving them from its relationship to the oppressive majority (like 12 Years a Slave) or making this relationship a main topic at all. Rather than a radical social image, Moonlight is a lyrical portrait of personality changes - and this is where it has considerable limits. The experience from the film is so very inspiring and unsatisfactory... Respect mixed with doubts. (02/22/2017)

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)