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Wednesday, May 24, 2017

Hit Me With Your Best Shot: "Moonlight" (2016)

*This post is part of the "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" blogathon at The Film Experience*

I apologize for the short length of this post. I'm trying to get back into the groove of blogging now that I'm officially a Master of Fine Arts (supposedly) and beginning my transition into a doctoral program. I have a lot of thoughts on this film, an excellent choice for the return of my favorite TFE series, that I will hopefully post later.

Moonlight is a radical film. Not necessarily in narrative or aesthetics, though the former masterfully builds on the cumulative evolution of the characters and the latter are evocative and beautiful. The film is not even that radical in representation - there have been films about black gay men before. But Moonlight is radical in that it is a film about black gay men that captured mainstream attention, playing in more theaters than its predecessors and winning awards, including the Academy Award for Best Picture. It's not new - it's just new to this level of national exposure.



For the uninitiated, the film follows Chiron through three periods of his life. In the first act, "Little" (Alex R. Hibbert) meets Juan (Mahershala Ali), a drug dealer who takes Chiron in with his girlfriend Teresa (Janelle Monáe). In the second act, teenage Chiron (Ashton Sanders) struggles with his drug-addicted mother (Naomie Harris) and bullying at school, which leads to a riff between him and best friend/crush Kevin (Jharrel Jerome). Act three, "Black," follows adult Chiron (Trevante Rhodes, revelatory) as he returns to Miami to meet with Kevin (André Holland) after years without contact.

The main throughline of the film is desire; namely, Chiron's desire for Kevin and his inability to put that desire into words. It's here that the film is radical in one very significant, but under-examined, facet: child sexuality.

More after the jump.