Moonlight

Manchester by the Sea war für mich ein intensiveres Erlebnis. Der Film hatte mehr Gefühle, die Beziehungen waren ausgearbeiteter und detaillierter. Moonlight spricht über sensible Sachen in einem harten Milieu bewundernswert zart, aber zu sparsam. Er baut auf der Poetik von Arthouse-Film-Zusätzen, verlangsamenden Elementen und stillen Details der Gesichter an Stellen, wo er sich deutlicher äußern könnte. Ich schätze die Arbeit des Regisseurs und die hochwertigen Leistungen der Schauspieler. Es hat mir Spaß gemacht, die Verwandlung der Hauptfigur in drei Lebensphasen zu beobachten, ihre innerliche Entwicklung zu verfolgen. Aber ich bleibe unberührt. Der Oscar-Wahn um Moonlight ist mehr politisch als verdient. Es ist eine Reaktion auf das Rassen-"Schlamassel“ im letzten Jahr. Trotzdem ist es gut, dass es dazu gekommen ist; schon wegen der aktuellen Launen auf der Welt, die von seinen Leadern verbreitet werden. (27.02.2017)

A homosexual black man in a successful film? Some honest Czechs will pop a vein. To me Moonlight is simply a good film and a quality drama. Though its theme naturally works like automatic award bait, I didn’t feel any cynicism or insincerity from it. It makes for a pretty unpleasant viewing that is painful in many ways, but to be fully satisfied I needed a somewhat stronger final catharsis. (05.02.2017)

If there’s one thing you have to grant to this film, it is the fact that Barry Jenkins is a very skilled director, who took on board with him James Laxton, who is s an equally skilled director of photography. And even though all this skill goes hand in hand with the actors, whose performances aren’t bad at all, my biggest issue is with the topic, which is not uninteresting, but I was more into it from the perspective of the Oscar nominations. You see, it’s really hard to me to follow the life fate of young Chiron, who lives in a society that is totally beyond me. There’s nobody in this movie I can understand and I simply watch young Chiron, who has trouble expressing himself and who’s simply observing everything as if from a distance. He probably can’t even see that the things that are going on around him are not ideal, but he can do nothing about it himself, so he’s simply trying to adjust, but despite that he wants to form an opinion of his own. A strange film, well made, but to me it was very inaccessible. It was really hard for me to find any emotion that I could at least catch on to. (14.02.2017)

Ein zweischneidiger Film. Nahezu alles, was an ihm bemerkenswert ist, hat auch seinen Nachteil. Abgesehen von den schauspielerischen Leistungen, welche das stärkste Element sind, das Moonlight zu bieten hat. Die Aufteilung in drei Teile sowie das sich Verlassen auf die Auslässe klappen abwechselnd, mancherorts entsteht somit eine beeindruckende Spannung zwischen unausgesprochener Ursache und Folge, an anderer Stelle scheint der Film etwas zu zerfallen und undicht zu sein. Laxtons Kameraführung, die eine berauschende Wirbelbahn kreieren kann, rutscht manchmal zu manieristischen konventionellen Details ab. Die musikalische Dramaturgie ist manchmal regelrecht austrocknend, doch andernorts harmoniert sie perfekt mit dem nicht direkt ausgesagtem (die Szene im Restaurant im dritten Teil). Dies ist auf beiden Ebenen ein problematischer Emanzipationsfilm - er kreiert eine Hauptfigur, die eher ungefähr als fesselnd wirkt. Und es sagt etwas über die Identitäten einer Minderheit aus, ohne sie aus ihrer Beziehung zur unterdrückenden Mehrheit (wie 12 Years a Slave) zu entreißen oder diese Beziehung überhaupt zu einem Hauptthema zu machen. Moonlight ist somit keine radikale soziale Abbildung, sondern ein lyrisches Porträt an Persönlichkeitsveränderungen - und gerade hier gibt es erhebliche Grenzen. Demnach machen wir hiermit eine nur allzu sehr inspirierende und unbefriedigende Erfahrung ... Respekt vermischt mit Zweifeln. (22.02.2017)

Social, racial, and sexual themes are targeted too blatantly, in response to all the criticisms aimed at the previous Oscars. The viewer must root for Chiron, whether they want to or not, because his most crucial scene partner is surprisingly the overacting Naomie Harris. However, I also have an issue with the overall form. It is cleverly chosen, although I cannot decide whether its partial imitation of Richard Linklater's Boyhood is an advantage or a disadvantage. It remains painfully empty when clumsily skipping over plot fragments that interest me much more than the main character's relationship with his unteachable mother. I am still struggling with Moonlight because, while I was enchanted by the exceptional performances of Mahershala Ali and André Holland, they were unable to shake off the loud impression of drama for the sake of drama. (06.02.2017)

Moonlight is a fragile and sensitive film about the wounds of adolescence and the difficult climb out of the fortresses that we build around ourselves against the pain, which applies to everyone, regardless of ethnic or sexual identity. For some individuals, however, it is even more difficult and painful because of their surroundings. The environment of the African-American community in poor neighbourhoods is by no means exceptional in this respect, but it is certainly meaningful due to what we see in terms of masculine patterns of behaviour and roles anywhere else in the world. In his outstanding screenplay, Barry Jenkins explores the theme of personal identity through three time planes and the three names of the main protagonist, which he typically never chose for himself, but at the same time tries to live with. Not one of them describes him, however, and the tension arising from whether he is able to answer the question of who is in the end is thus even more agonising. Moonlight is one of the few films that truly deserves the problematic Oscar for Best Film, as it does not reflect any contemporary trends, campaigns or politics, but rather represents one of the ideals of cinema – a personal and distinctive work that, thanks to the perfect use of the full range of vehicles of expression, from acting through narrative structure to formal processes distilled from various models (admittedly here, for example, Wong Kar-Wai and Hou Hsiao-hsien), resonates deep within us and leads us to catharsis involving personal and general humanistic themes. In addition to that, it exposes us to a tremendous onslaught of emotions, even though it conceals them below the surface most of the time. (03.05.2020)

Tailor-made black Oscar-bait. An attempt at a great little film that tries to portray the plight of an exceptional individual on the edge of standard society and his integration into mainstream life despite his gay "handicap". Not that the narrative was impersonal and the camera twists unimpressive, but as a gay-themed film, Brokeback Mountain was a class act. As a story of childhood and growing up in a black community, it's good, but the really resonant scenes are few and far between, and there are quite a few clichés, especially when it comes to the outlining of the secondary characters (a bad mother, problems with classmates). Thumbs up especially for the solid performances and interestingly laid out story stages, where paradoxically the most important events happen outside the viewer. There are thematically similar films that are far fuller in feeling and more nuanced in their relationships. (08.04.2017)

Okay, so in 2017, all it takes to win the Oscar for Best Picture is to crudely edit three stages in the life of an uninteresting black gay man, intersperse them with a string of the most overused social clichés about a junkie mother, a wise mentor/dealer, or school bullying, and gild them with a poetic scene about being cleansed in the waves of the sea; all of that without breaking down a single line of the narrative so that the viewer would have a chance to become attached to the main character or to know what is actually being primarily communicated to them. For a story about coming to terms with homosexuality, the film has hardly any sexual tension (well, thank God, actually) and it’s too telegraphic and unsurprising for a confession about adapting to one's environment. The only really pleasing things are the believable actors, led by Naomie Harris, who ironically would be the only one deserving an Oscar, and the polished cinematography, whose synergy with the chilling soundtrack builds a good 80% of the overall depressing atmosphere. My eye was especially pleased by the beauty Janelle Monáe, although here she looked a bit too..... cold. Very weak 3* (27.02.2017)

Von den afroamerikanischen, für einen Oscar nominierten Filmen wohl der beste, doch bin ich mir trotzdem nicht ganz sicher, ob die Nominierung für den besten Film verdient ist. Das letzte Drittel des Films ist buchstäblich misslungen und langweilig, so als habe man die ersten zwei Drittel ausgearbeitet, es hätte ein qualvolles Drama ausgerichtet auf zwei Minderheiten und eine pathologische Erscheinung in der Gesellschaft draus werden können. Janelle Monae habe ich heute schon zum zweiten Mal nicht erkannt, doch dafür hebe ich die Leistung von Naomie Harris hervor, nur diese ist oscarreif, denn unsere Moneypenny spielt, als gelte es das Leben. (26.02.2017)

I didn't know what to expect from this film at all, and I must say that in the end, I was perhaps hoping for something more. However, it once again confirms that even a slow pace can engage viewers and keep them captivated throughout. An intriguing character development, where it's almost a pity it wasn't captured in a real actor's adolescence like in the case of the film Boyhood. (12.02.2017)

8 (!!!) Oscar nominations for this? You've gotta be kidding me. My giving this such a low rating might surprise you, but when a film is nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture, my expectations naturally go up. If I had casually watched the movie outside of the Oscar season, I might not have been so harsh in my review, but now I just can't help it. I'll start with the positives. Ali's performance is great. And that’s about it, because what follows is a list of negatives. The theme is okay, although seen a thousand times and filmed a million times before, but fine. What was an unpleasant surprise was the performance of Naomie Harris, which was simply lousy and did not fit the movie at all, and her Oscar (and Golden Globes and BAFTA) nomination is actually a total insult to all the unnominated actresses. Alright, let’s just get this over with. Absolutely illogical, some of the storylines fall flat, some would-be artistically effective cuts, a desperately pandering soundtrack (déjà vu of last year's Danish Girl). I could go on. In the competition of similar-style movies, Moonlight clearly loses to Hidden Figures. Above all, what I want to say is that all the nominations that Moonlight received after the "all-white Oscars" controversy would have been a hundred times more deserved by Straight Outta Compton last year. (22.02.2017)