Rent Moonlight (2016)

A so-so single issue film - and all black cast too. - Moonlight review by PV

Well the Oscars often get it wrong and will do so more and more now they have gender and race quotas (unofficial). So this neat the dreadful LaLa Land to the best picture Oscar - GREAT! But it really is not that great. It's different because it has an entirely black cast with not a single white face anywhere in the movie - yet that really is the way some areas in the USA are. However, it's not a patch on HBO TV series The Wire in exploring that location and African-American culture.

All set in Miami's black areas, it starts on the street where drug dealing is happening - this is an areas where a white face should never go really and neither should anyone looking gay. The main character is bullied supposedly because he looks gay but I did not notice this at all - he wasn't effeminate in any obvious way which is what characters seemed to notice!

Anyway, the way repressed gay men often macho-up to 'prove' they are not gay is explored here - and that is the most effective part of the film, which starts strongly then sags a bit. Black communities are well-known for their often angry and violent homophobia - I think in the USA, in a poll a majority of African Americans would make homosexuality illegal, and the figure may well be the same in socially conservative ethnic groups in the UK (though we have 4% black population and total ethnic minority of 16%; the USA has 12 or 13 % black with whole areas 100% black and has had these for years - centuries even).

Watchable BUT turn on the subtitles would be my advice (the same with The Wire) because Afro-American is a dialect which is mumbled at best so hard to understand!

I didn't dislike this film, and it's theme is unusual and therefore interesting (I have come to loathe Hollywood movies whether action-based or emotional dramas). But feel it's over-rated, and it clearly won the Oscar because it was an all-black movie which matters in race-obsessed affirmative-action America. But at least it beat the utterly dreadful LaLa Land so well done for that! Anything that stopped that mediocre mess winning anything is fine with me!

3 stars. Meh...

A Black mirror? - Moonlight review by WS

Rarely if ever have I seen a film that gives such a relentlessly negative portrayal of Black working class life.

It depicts a world in which lethargy, casual violence, and self-destructiveness rule, in which drug-dealers are the only positive role models in their community, and in which there is seemingly no-one around with the guts or the self-awareness to challenge the way things are. Chiron's mom is a respectable citizen in the first segment of the film; by part two she has become a drug addict for no apparent reason. At one point some teens play "get down, stay down" - a sort of endurance game in which one boy gets voluntarily punched in the face repeatedly and the aim is to see how many blows he can take before he rises no more. What better illustration of the levels of male self-loathing in this community?

It's bleak and often very uncomfortable viewing. At least the writer-director had the courage to remain true to his fatalistic, cyclical vision of humanity - I respect him for doing something different instead of falling back on cliches about redemption and social justice. Perhaps sometimes it is also necessary to hold a mirror up to the disreputable aspects of society as a challenge to them to improve themselves and stop blaming others for their degradation.

But I would not want to see it again - I would rather watch films that portray multi-faceted urban black communities and emotionally complex individuals.

Amazing - Moonlight review by SKC

When I see a film with the accolades like those on the main picture I get very dubious. However, having seen the film, I read them and whole heartedly agree. This film was simply stunning. I think the other reviewer watched the wrong film. This film is a must see. I was rivetted. Superb acting, direction and at times visually stunning.