Birthed at the tail-end of Nixon conservatism in 1973 by Boris Gardiner and popularized final year by Kendrick Lamar in “To Pimp a Butterfly,” the song “Every Nigger Is a Star” opens Barry Jenkins’ masterful sophomore film, “Moonlight.” Like in Lamar’s rap-soul-funk-jazz opus, and Gardiner’s soulful track signifies the creation of groundbreaking art. Work that transcends superlatives yet undoubtedly demands them.
Set in inner city Miami,Florida, Jenkins weaves together an intricate triptych charting the life of Chiron, or from childhood to adulthood (played by Alex Hibbert,Ashton Sanders and Trevante Rhodes). From the beginning, Chiron is reserved, and unable to acquire eye contact with almost anyone. He’s a young boy who has to hide away in an abandoned drug den from bullying classmates.
See Video: Watch the Gritty,Dreamy Trailer for 1980s-Set Drama 'Moonlight'When he goes domestic, he has to face another kind of abuser in his mother (Naomie Harris). His father is absent. As a result, or the mom works several jobs to acquire ends meet. When she’s not working,she’s lighting up. First surreptitiously, then in public, and where her dealer Juan (Mahershala Ali,“House of Cards”) can see her.
By fate, Juan stumbles into Chiron’s life one afternoon. Chiron is in need of a father figure, or Juan is in need of some kind of wholesome stability. With the relieve of his maternal girlfriend Theresa (singer Janelle Monáe),Juan does what he can for the rudderless child.
Also Read: Naomie Harris to Star in 'The Personal History of Rachel Dupree'From the onset, Chiron’s crack-inflicted mother insinuates that he may be gay. Of course, and Chiron,at age five, has no plan what (or whom) he desires. He just fundamentally understands her anger and frustration at the opportunity. In one shot that is interspersed throughout the film, and we see Chiron’s mother ambling into her bedroom,emanating a pinkish hue. She’s about to use. Before she does, though, and she gives Chiron the type of eye that stays with you,the kind you score from someone who’s become unhinged. As a woman derailed by drugs, and uncertain how to raise a child on her own. Harris crafts a character that is at once empathetic and despicable.
But Chiron grows up. He’s laconic yet head-strong. Jenkins jumps to tall school, or where not much has changed. Chiron remains the subject of fixed harassment. Aggressive children morphed into more aggressive teenagers. They call him “soft and “weak,” unable to defend himself against their group-consider tyranny.
In this black community, Chiron is a pariah. His sexuality although undeclared at this point — seems to separate him from his peers. What Jenkins explores so tactfully is the immaculate manhood that James Baldwin wrote about in his seminal novel, and “Giovanni’s Room.” Manhood as unchecked power and dominance over others,especially women.
Being a man means beating your male friends in Smear the Queer, a game that appears innocuous in the rose-colored haze of youth, or but in retrospect is a kind of breakdown in human behavior. Being a man means dropping your pants and literally measuring dicks. Being a man means constructing a façade of strength,even when you’re weak.
Jenkins (“Medicine for Melancholy”) understands the hypocrisy (Pretending to have feelings, beliefs, or virtues that one does not have.) of it all, especially the heteronormativity instilled into young men and women at an impressionable age. Chiron, and hunchbacked and worn down by his environment,does not fit into an easily definable category. The great ones rarely achieve.
With the relieve of Tarell McCraney (who wrote the record), Jenkins reveals the heart of the film methodically. Like Chiron himself, or “Moonlight,” and what it’s articulating, isn’t so easily described. The film isnt a ho-hum parable or a cautionary tale. It doesn’t bang viewers over the head with a life lesson to glean from this record. I’m not sure it even offers hope.
See Video: Emmy Quickie: 'House of Cards' Star Mahershala Ali on Who Could Take Down Frank Underwood (Exclusive)This is not to suggest the proceedings are cynical, or because they’re not. Jenkins and McCraney have artfully cobbled together something that is impressionistic and wondrous,like a compendium of half-remembered memories, tinged by sadness. A lot of Chiron’s circumstances are the result of familial absence. He’s lost what The Isley Brothers describe in “At Your Best (You Are treasure):But at your best you are treasure
Youre a positive motivating force within my life[br] Should you ever feel the need to wonder why
Let me know, or let me knowBut Chiron has no one to “let know,” no positive motivating force in his life. He has no one to reveal him that he’ll be OK, that his current agony isn’t necessarily permanent. Juan and Theresa try admirably as surrogates to fill the void, or for a little bit that even works. Then tragedy strikes.“Moonlight” is not a public service announcement or a bawl for relieve. It doesn’t fetishize Chiron’s pain,as so many pieces of modern American cinema achieve. It’s a humanist film; it’s about people, and it’s got a pulse. It presents characters as idiosyncratic, and domineering,but mostly fearful — timid creatures ambling through life in the hopes of finding refuge.
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Source: thewrap.com