learning how to float
by
Douglas Messerli
Barry
Jenkins (screenplay, based on a play and story by Tarell Alvin McCraney, and
director) Moonlight / 2016
Barry
Jenkins’ well-written-and-directed film, based on a play and film script by
Tarell Alvin McCraney, takes us to places where few black films have previously
gone. In its tripartite structure, Jenkins’ work explores the issues of growing
up in poor projects (this in Liberty City, Miami) from childhood to being an
adult and the toll it takes on people’s lives.
Beginning with a skinny, almost
malnourished young boy, Chiron (Alex Hibbert), whose nickname in his early days
is “Little” because of both his size and manner, is plagued by a mother who is
quickly developing a drug habit.
Over the next few days, things get even
worse as she becomes more and more involved in drugs, and finally attacks him
(which the film brilliantly expresses in silence) as a “faggot,” a word the
young boy does even understand. He returns to Juan and Teresa, who, once again,
invite him in, as he asks questions about sexuality and other fears, which
they, kindly, attempt to explain to him, reassuring him that if he does later
find himself to be gay, he must choose his own identity.
The second section of Moonlight is shot in modified Kodak,
signaled by a blue image in the quick interlude. As the teen Chiron (André
Holland), the boy has grown in a gangly kid, who still seems lost in pain and
fear. Now those who taunted him as a child are even more aggressive in their
raging hormonal changes, not only threatening him, but mocking his tight jeans
as opposed to their baggy streetwear. Chiron is also further abused by his
increasingly drugged-out mother.
One fellow student, in particular, Terrel
(Patrick Decile), is determined to punish the still-shy boy, who now, with his
only friend Kevin (Jharrel Jerome), realizes his gay sexuality one late night
on the beach. Yet Kevin is also a former tough guy, accepted by his classmates,
including Terrel, who forces him to engage in a hazing tradition of beating a
chosen classmate until he refuses to get up.
The third section, shot in Agfra film
stock (adding cyan to its images, a complimentary to red, signified by a red
spot in the brief interlude), features Trevante Rhodes as a march darker,
hulkier, and menacing adult Chiron, who,
working in Atlanta—where his aging mother now lives and works in a
rehabilitation center—as a drug dealer, like his father-figure Juan. If we do
not like the gold-tapped toothed “Black,” his new nickname, as much as we did
his previous incarnations, it is because he has now retreated so far into
himself that he no longer knows who he was or might have been.
Yet in his nightly wet sweats, he realize
that this street thug is having many of the same problems of his youth. His
mother calls to beg him to visit her, as he equally attempts to ignore her
pleas. When the phone rings again he attempts to reassure her that he will
visit, before finally realizing that the call is from his old friend-enemy,
Kevin, who now works as a cook in Miami, after having himself served time in
jail. Kevin has heard a song on his restaurant’s jukebox that suddenly reminded
him of his long ago friendship, and has somehow found Chiron’s telephone number.
Their elliptical conversation seems to
take them nowhere, as Kevin admits that he married, had a baby, and is now
separated but friendly with his former wife; and Chiron, as unable to express
himself as always, dares not to hint at why he has made the trip. Neither knows
how to clearly brooch the subject of their own failures, loneliness, and total
isolation.
Having nowhere to stay the night, Chiron
takes up Kevin’s offer to visit his small apartment, where finally Kevin
himself admits that he had failed in almost everything he attempted until now,
working as he does for nearly nothing. Chiron, meanwhile, admits that he has
never been with another man since Kevin on the beach, perhaps one the saddest
admissions about love ever expressed in film. Whether these two men have sex
that night or not is beside the point: each has come home to help the other to
find expressions of love that they have never before been able to admit, and
the final scene simply portrays the somewhat menacing Chiron with his head upon
Kevin’s shoulder.
While this film, in part, is a kind of
black gay story, it is, more importantly, about abused children who have never
had the opportunity to express the love which might have nurtured them into
adulthood. These now hardened males must find their own way back into
tenderness and feeling, a difficult journey for all.
Jenkins,
his cinematographer James Laxton, and his editors Nat Sanders and Joi McMillon
take what is basically a naturalistic tale, and break it down into
stunningly-timed images that reveal more than any one character can express.
Although all of the actors are quite
wonderful in their gentle and almost mute performances (Naomie Harris and the
child actor, Alex Hibbert, are particularly memorable), it is their actions
that matter most: tears at the most unexpected moment, a quiet and hard-won
bubble bath, the gesture of
helping one learn to float, an unexpected kiss, a loving sprinkle of parsley
upon a special dish. To say this small film is elegant in those images is an
understatement. Jenkins turns the everyday, the painful, and the ugly into visions
of a restoral of life.
As awful as Chiron’s surroundings have
been, it is a world, when looked into more carefully, as this film does, we
recognize as filled with would-be loving figures—if only given half a chance.
Los Angeles,
November 1, 2016
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