Moonlight (2016)

USA
written and directed by: Barry Jenkins
starring: Alex R. Hibbert, Ashton Sanders, Trevante Rhodes, Naomie Harris
seen: 20th August, 2017

I was so happy during the few opening minutes, believing that what's to follow truly is the best film of the year. A big man comes to check on his subordinate. They exchange some seemingly friendly words. A complex context and ironclad chain of command can be sensed behind those words. A man covered in sores and scabs begs for some dope and is both pitifuly pathetic and junkie-like apathetic. A little boy crosses their path, followed by silent bullies who throw stones at him. The boy hides in a derelict house, he's alone, he's in the dark, he can only hear the outside world. Two strong hands pry the boarded window open. The big man came to pull the boy out into the open and into the light.

The dynamics of this sequence is so captivating and alluring it almost hurts. And it also hurts because almost nothing that comes later in the film is nearly as good and definitely nothing tops it in its impact on me. It got me ready to see a strong story and instead I got the usual struggles of films with a passive protagonist (and devolved between three actors on top of that). Naomie Harris represents the only true constant and she gets so litte time and is so isolated from hero's life she has no space to properly cast her magic.

And my personal problem is that when I more or less adjust to the slow build-up to painful points of acts one and two and accept it as a norm, act three comes along and is build completely differently. I don't understand it so much that it doesn't influence my experience of the film in any way. I should go and watch Happy Together again.