"Moonlight" - glimmering!

O my God, WHAT A BEAUTIFUL FILM! I might recycle the final sentence from my last post about "Manchester at the Sea" and, even though this is the best thing I could think of saying about a film, it would never do "Moonlight" justice. So it wasn't JUST a "political" choice. I still haven't seen "La-La-Land", and probably never will, but there cannot be any film matching this, neither in beauty and perfection (= capacity of telling exactly, simply, and beautifully what you want to tell), nor on the level of intelligence and perspicacity. It was PERFECT in all respects. And whereas "Manchester at the Sea" is just "quietly" beautiful "Moonlight" is bold and daring as well. And emotional, in a totally "honest" way. The kind of film that couldn't leave anybody unmoved who has a human bone in his body. It doesn't occur often that I definitely lack the words for adequate praise ...

And I think now that Mahershala Ali didn't get the Oscar for being black AND Muslim, and not even mostly for being good-looking and confident, but kind of "by proxy" for all the great (black) actors contributing to this film. Everybody was amazing anyway. But of course I can't know that. Same as it is impossible to know definitely if "Moonlight" got the Oscar for the "right" reasons or if this was in fact "political". Which, by the way, might be the wrong reason only in my book, not in most people’s. Making or receiving this kind of judgements is not something I am fond of, but it comes into any reading almost more inevitably than "ethics" and is always kind of embarrassing - as I just experienced when I received my friend's merciless rejection of "Hannibal". Because, even though she meticulously laid down her reasons for rejecting it, does this mean that I am fond of watching shit, and what does this say about me? I think that this kind of implications are the reason why I have become even more careful about criticism than I have been, but, as I said, some kind of verdict about the people who have liked it is almost always implied. And to make it explicit would mean to make up my mind about what "kitsch" or "bad taste", or other terms we use (even if only in our head) to pass a crushing verdict, actually means. That is, what the concept is that is masked by these invectives. And it is not the most captivating thing to do but - as I realize every year when the Oscars come up - might be useful. What I realized as well is that I avoid to SAY "kitsch" or "bad taste" - even though I probably think it more often than I realize - and use the more subjective, but no less crushing, terms "boring" and "stupid". Maybe because I don't like to write something I don't understand, and I understand what "boring" and "stupid" means. That is, that I was bored when I watched it and felt it to be beneath my intellectual ("philosophical") standards. (Meaning: inacceptable as to the way I see the world ...) Well, in both respects I am completely on the safe side with "Moonlight". It is definitely one of the least boring and stupid films I have ever seen, like "The Big Short" was, and unlike "Spotlight" which I haven't seen - I just assumed that it was the film that a majority would be able to relate to, unlike "The Big Short", which would make it less intelligent. I admit it: I am still pleased that I was the only person in the cinema who laughed ... (But my brother, who is working in a bank, loved it as well. And I think he took one of the characters very personally. If I had thought about it I would have known who this would be ...) But of course this is as snobbish an attitude as I have observed and hated in others. If I couldn't even be bothered to see something I should keep my mouth shut. (Writing it in my blog might be the next best thing anyway ...) But of course this is how it works. This kind of preconceived opinions is important too because this is how we choose what we can be bothered to read in the first place. And it is important because nobody can read everything worth reading. (In terms of going to the cinema it is ever more becoming a question of spending money that I could spend on dvds instead …)

And even if this topic is kind of "not sexy" it is something that probably came into any of my posts, and into any of my reading. Because it is somehow fundamentally important to me to do things for the "right" reasons. Which might be stupid because: how does it matter anyway? What is the difference if I do things just because I like them ...? I know, though. It makes me develop "better" taste and makes me usually like the things I like even more. (I even know that my "gut reaction" AGAINST Schiller came from understanding him so well ... And then I was so pleased to discover that I didn't!) As I said, it IS important, but I won't get anywhere with this right now. I might as well go back to the film.

“Moonlight” got a nomination for "best camera" which I think is justified but daring because the hand-held camera is used so inexorably that the image is actually blurry sometimes, and right in the beginning I thought: "No, you don't!" because the cameraman stood right in between the actors and was turning round and round ... but in fact this was great because I suddenly felt as if I stood in this place myself, with the aggression palpably rising about me. Feeling uncomfortable NOT JUST because of the spinning around. This is something I have never seen before (I usually hate hand-held camera ...) except in "Knight of Cups" (which should have got "best camera" by the way, back then ...) This was the first time I appreciated the hand-held camera because the filming created a completely subjective perspective to the point that THIS, in my opinion, was already what the film was about. So, as a means of telling stories IN A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT WAY, like in "Moonlight", the hand-held camera is great. And I appreciated the turning round because of this but was also grateful when they stopped. In fact I have never noticed camera movements as often as I did in this film, and that was because I could see so exactly why they were doing what they were doing.

And this goes for every other aspect of this film as well, which is why I loved it so much. The exactness and truth of every little moment, especially in the acting. Like Juan (Mahershala Ali) literally shrinking before the young boy because he has to tell him the truth about what he is doing. But he DOES tell the truth, even though he knows that he will lose his respect, will lose him completely. And this is the last time we see Juan. We just see, in the third part of the film, the boy having grown into the spitting image of him, now selling drugs himself. But as much as I liked this, to be quite honest: Naomi Harris should have got "best supporting actress" (she was nominated) - which would have implied that Mahershala Ali wouldn't have got "best supporting actor". And this isn't even about merit because there is no comparing of so many truthful and extraordinary feats of acting anyway. It is about "justice". In fact there is an especially ugly paradox contained in this constellation: the self-appointed father (Juan) who cares properly for the boys and who is selling drugs to people like this boy’s mother, making her unable to care for him. Maybe this film, albeit being so “simple”, is in fact too sophisticated on a deeper level for most people. (Including me: I noticed the paradox just now writing about it. And then I noticed a lot more of paradox throughout the film. It was kind of like when I “got it” what “Macbeth” is actually about, noticing the persistent “equivocation”. Because, even though people want it to be like this: humanity and morality are two different pairs of shoes - or at least you are born LUCKY when you are born into circumstances where they are not ...??? Blimey! I didn’t really try to but I might have dug up by accident what the film was about for me. Nonetheless I didn't mean "poetic" justice, I meant justice towards the actors because I think it was “harder” to play Paula than to play Juan. At least I think that most actors prefer to play characters that appeal to the audience and are sleek and beautiful rather than ugly and cracking. Even though “real” actors probably prefer the ugly and cracking to BORING beautiful characters. 

I just inadvertently got into the “90^th stuff” of my dvd collection and remembered that I had liked the 90^th even on German television because it was still about 90 percent more honest than what they do today. I always wonder where this generation came from that has completely lost touch with everything that is “real” inside them. Maybe there just ISN’T anything anymore that is not spelled out by the television and advertising industry before it ends up on “our” plate … Anyway, I watched “The Lakes” first and then “Sparkhouse” which are kind of the same style but, whereas “Sparkhouse” literally stinks of sheep and everything is steeped knee-deep in mud, there is so much boring and depressing sex in “The Lakes” as is probably actually still going on in this kind of places. Only it is probably less disagreeable now because every imaginable kind of ugliness and misery gets “face-lifted” by social media. My, my, now the nineties already appear historical to me, whereas the eighties are definitely turned into ancient history. But it IS twenty years ago …In fact the only “pretend” reason for writing this – because I so obviously WANTED to write it! – was an example for what I was stating because it is the most obvious example for an actor I have on dvd who is totally unhappy with the character he is playing. I couldn’t fail noticing it because it is Richard Armitage playing a farm hand called John Standring. And I suppose he hated every minute of it because he knew he was unable to hide his posh accent, and his intelligence and good looks completely. He probably didn’t want to because hiding isn’t what actors do, and he probably couldn’t figure out what there was to SHOW instead. And I suppose he didn’t like it either that they desperately tried to make him look awkward and unattractive by tucking him into baggy pullovers (I don’t think we even use that WORD anymore …) and making him wear a very unattractive hairdo. (In fact my father used to grow his hair like this, and he was a school-teacher, not a farm hand! But this was definitely the seventies … where it didn’t matter what men LOOKED like. Even in the late eighties he had begun to have his hair cut very short.) And they even failed! They just made him look clownish, which was probably even worse. Well, I suspect he hated it half the time and the other half tried very hard not to laugh … 

Maybe this is even why I like this stuff, even though it appears pathetic and exaggerated from a twenty-first century perspective: because it makes me aware of how much times have changed – of course not entirely for the good. These two series are in fact a great sample of the “period”, with “beautiful” actors – I finally understood why John Simm obviously enjoyed playing Danny Kavanagh in “The Lakes” so much. Because there is so much of a human angle and so much variety of human predicaments in there. (In fact, John Standring is a great character as well – almost one of his kind, at least in films, because he “naturally” sees the best in other people, not the worst – as “we” usually do. And of course Richard Armitage took up this angle and played it beautifully. But he is certainly not somebody "we" would want to be.) Or why I always held Alun Armstrong - who plays the literally ugliest character in “Sparkhouse” - in such high esteem, and was so pleased to rediscover him in “Little Dorrit”. This face – I just couldn’t get away from it! It certainly isn’t attractive but there is a whole LANDSCAPE in it which is even changing towards the end, completely, like a real landscape does, neglected and beaten down by the passing of time … 

I know I got sidetracked because it is ages that I wanted to write this and – what I didn’t even know until now: because it is such great proof of HOW MUCH times have changed. And this is even why it is such a stellar example for what I wanted to state about “justice”. Because there actually WAS a greater interest in the human angle back then and, consequently, in characters that don’t fit the norm and aren’t redeemed automatically for being good-looking and “cool”. So it would have been great to give the Oscar to Naomi Harris because she played ugly and cracking “beautifully” and didn’t spare herself anything. (But I am still secretly pleased of course that Mahershala Ali got it …) 

And these observations brought me closer to why I think “Moonlight” is so exactly what I like. Even the “bad” mother and drug addict, in my opinion, isn’t “exposed” and stripped of her dignity – probably “protected” by great and truthful acting, though it is impossible to determine where this impression comes from. It originates probably even mainly in the way this story is told (of which the actors still have the biggest part, even though the camera is almost as important): subjectively, avoiding to pass judgement in any form, but with these big paradoxes underneath which induce the audience to finding their own point of view. In the protagonist’s orbit a drug dealer is mostly somebody who has “made it”, who has become powerful and rich. But I am rather certain that he abandoned his role model nonetheless because he learns that Juan “destroyed” his mother. And nonetheless he genuinely hates her for what she has done to him. He even says so AT THE SAME TIME he acknowledges his bond with her that will last as long as both of them are alive. There is no way out of it – as there is no way out of who he is. Living it will be quite enough of a challenge.

Now I have finally arrived at what in my opinion is the most beautiful thing about the film – and why I think there should have been a “shared” Oscar for the leading actors of “Moonlight” (even though I would have felt sorry for Casey Affleck whom I admired very much in “Manchester at the Sea”). But this was something I have never seen before: how faithfully the older actors “absorbed” their younger versions in their acting. Especially Trevante Rhodes who plays the adult, “Black”. I almost gasped with surprise – I think I did, actually – when I suddenly saw the vulnerable young man you have come to know kind of “break” through the “armoured tank” of muscle, coolness and gold teeth. Kind of like the light suddenly breaking through the clouds and changing the landscape completely. As for many of the greatest achievements he didn’t “get” anything for it – except maybe the future opportunity of playing more great characters, which I certainly hope for. (And a place in the “hall of eternal admiration” of people like me who care for this kind of thing. In my case in such illustrious company as the “showdown sequence” of “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”, or Ralph Fiennes as Richard III. Which won’t matter to him because in my case he will never know …) Yet, of course he got something lasting out of it which is THIS FILM that albeit all the great work of other people would have FAILED without this. And I just hope he can SEE that himself, like the spectators can. I often wonder if actors can and am skeptical. I suppose they are too much “caught up” within their characters, like musicians in the middle of an orchestra cannot really hear the sound the orchestra is making. Anyway – looking forward to seeing him again, even if it will be five years, or ten years … And THIS is of course the “political” implication of giving the Oscar to a film like “Moonlight” which is REALLY important. I just hope it WORKS!