Moonlight

I remember first hearing about Moonlight as the movie that beat La La Land in the Oscars, and the whole controversy that mix-up caused, when I was about 10 years old. I remember a lot about 2016, and yet simultaneously so little. I think of a lot of the looks people would give me, both loving and scornful. I remember not knowing too much, outside of what my father told me, and what the boys joked about in the playground. However, I knew of the Oscars, and I knew of the mix-up, and ever since then Moonlight has taken up an ethereal place in my mind. This critically acclaimed movie with a poster that reminded me of the Aurora Borealis, looming over me—while I had wanted to watch La La Land for over a decade, listening to the music and basking in it’s warm, glitzy glow, I feel like Moonlight was the film that had been truly waiting for me, ever since I first heard of it as a child. La La Land felt like a whirlwind when I watched it (similar in sense to the end of the Someone in the Crowd music number), but Moonlight felt like a swirl of memories I didn’t even know I could feel. Chiron is one of the most multidimensional and authentic characters I’ve ever witnessed, to the point where I hesitate even saying he’s a character, for the film has tricked me so into believing that he is a real, living human being. The acting in this movie is so unfathomably real that it felt like I was watching a documentary, and the soft, dreamy haze that permeates a majority of the film, the soft focus and stark contrast lighting and lens flares, feels like I’m watching through Chiron’s memories. The tension between Chiron and Kevin, his lover, was so thick and raw that it was borderline voyeuristic, like I was gazing upon someone’s most intimate moments with another human being. It’s heartbreaking, how it all developed, and how the walls were built like they were, but I have hope in both these men behaving unabashedly true to themselves, and it inspires me to do the same, in my own way. I definitely need to rewatch this—if it wasn’t so late in the night, I’d have likely run it back just to see it again, haha! In this ramble of a first thoughts review, I admit that I’m absolutely blown away, and look forward to seeing how my feelings towards this film will grow alongside me. One of the great masterpieces of 21st Century Filmmaking, and deserved the Oscar for Best Picture in my opinion—La La Land is utterly fantastic, but Moonlight is a transcendent experience for me. Just wow, man.