I saw a preview for Moonlight, but it did not take root because I was not sure what the movie was about. I judged it superficially and unfairly- a guy with gold grillz, probably not for me, but the actor’s sweet smile and vulnerability stood in stark contrast to his appearance. I have loved Mahershala Ali since The 4400 so I conceded that it maybe worth further investigation later. I relegated Moonlight to an even more amorphous category than I initially placed Queen of Katwe because I could not categorize it. I was not planning to see Moonlight in theaters, but would it even make the insanely large queue. I am old enough and live in a political apocalyptic world. Time is running out, and if the afterlife does not have movie theaters, I won’t be able to watch everything.
What made me change my mind? As I recounted in my review of Queen of Katwe, at the time there was a great clamor for the black community to show solidarity and see rapey Nate Parker’s Birth of a Nation. I will see any movie, but I will not pay to see any movie so you can be the next Woody Allen or Roman Polanski, I am not going to the theater to see your film if I am not doing it for them. If you don’t respect Oprah, whom I may not be a devotee of, but respect for her accomplishments, then you definitely won’t care what I think so you don’t need my money. I’ll catch you later, maybe.
I do listen to The Black Guy Who Tips podcast, and hosts, Rod and Karen, astutely questioned why the solidarity bell gets rung for people like rapey Nate Parker and not for movies like Queen of Katwe or Moonlight, a movie about a gay black boy becoming a man. Wait, what!?! They were right, and now that I knew what the movie was about, I was desperate to get to theaters as soon as possible before Moonlight left. Take my money! I have a solemn duty to financially support stories that do not often get told to insure that they get told in the future and are not discounted as not having mainstream appeal. After that podcast, I began to hear friends talk about Moonlight. Moonlight was the real masterpiece, an innovative classic. I went to see Moonlight knowing nothing else about the film.
Moonlight is not a conventionally structured film. Viewers with similar experiences may find it challenging, but far from impossible, to adjust to Moonlight’s narrative structure. While this technique is not unusual on the stage, it is unusual for a film, and recently I found out that Three Times, a foreign film that I recently added to my queue, inspired Moonlight, which was adapted in part from a play. Moonlight is a movie in three acts that examine three stages in a person’s life: childhood, adolescence and adulthood. I am slightly embarrassed to admit that it took me a second to figure out at the beginning of the second act that the teenage boy was the same person as the child in the first act even though the casting is terrific. By the third act, even though the main character’s transformation is dramatic, I was finally on the same page as the creators.
Moonlight’s central question is who will you be. Will you let yourself be defined by others, circumstances or what you want? Usually letting yourself be defined by others or circumstances is depicted as cowardice or a craven betrayal, but Moonlight adds some texture to the journey. Someone said that all art focuses on usually one of four topics: pre-fall, post-fall, heaven, hell. Moonlight’s identity question is firmly rooted in the post-fall world. Everything is concrete. Mothers are not nurturing. Everything eventually becomes corrupted. There is always a snake in the garden. The only brief moments of respite are facing the ocean, the only link to nature. Identity is not a philosophical question as easily picked as fruit from the grocery store. Moonlight roots identity in survival and compulsion. You can be an individual who knows who you are and what you want, but if your survival literally depends on straight drag to survive, then you put on the grillz and emulate the most extreme masculine version of the only man that nurtured you. You can be a gentle, nurturing man, but you can also be a drug dealer who destroys homes to create one for yourself. Moonlight exists in a complex world where people know what is wrong and how great life can be, but the chasm seems interminable.
Moonlight is a metaphoric and literal story of exile from paradise, home, self, but also kindness and love with only the slim hope of connection and forgiveness, which may or may not be sustainable. The second act is particularly devastating because of a coercive physical rejection from a possible turning point to embracing who he is. I read somewhere that Moonlight is one of the few, if not only movies, to depict Cubans as black so that added layer of exile adds an emotionally resonant nuance to the film.
Not since City of God or City of Man, two Brazilian films, have I seen a movie that captures the different shades and textures and beauty of black skin like Moonlight. The story is riveting and dominates, but everyone should try to take a second to appreciate how beautifully crafted Moonlight is visually. The ensemble cast does a great job playing human beings, not tropes. Both Moonlight’s story and acting avoid obvious pitfalls of character archetypes such as the crack-addicted mother, the local drug dealer or the drug dealer’s girlfriend.
I am not a gay black male so I defer to gay black men in their interpretation of this film. I was really surprised that everyone automatically pegged the main character in the first two acts as gay. I am delighted to say that Moonlight does not use any obvious, superficial gay signifiers, but how did everyone just know? Is it because his clothes are fitted and not baggy? I really have no idea and would love feedback on this. I may be from New York City, but I do not claim any special insights. I left Moonlight with other questions. I know what happened to Ali’s character, but what EXACTLY happened to Ali’s character?
Side note: in a gritty world without Mister Rogers, we could use a children’s show hosted by Moonlight’s characters played by Ali and Janelle Monae tenderly breaking hard truths to the boys and girls in the US.
If I had more time, I would see Moonlight again because I really think that it would benefit from multiple viewings. I am happy to say that months after I saw it, it is still in theaters and is up for some Oscars so you still have an opportunity to see it on the big screen. Sometimes an act of resistance is a protest, and other times, it is seeing the humanity in the unseen people who surround us.