Moonlight: Life’s not black & white
Rated: 6/10
This introvert movie on Black life and times through the coming of age of a gay Black boy has won 8 Oscar nominations despite its slow-moving, introspective and often uncomfortable tale of a typical Black boy growing up amid drugs, bullying, crime and addiction.
For those not squeamish about being with issues at cinema halls will be totally taken in by the depiction of Little’s life which has been broken down into three chapters by the director.
The beauty of the film lies as much as in the fearlessly slow scripting as in the distinct characterisation of all the three stages of Little’s growing up. Language and diction may be a problem for Indian viewers but the emotion often flows from the eyes and the twitching lips both of which are the most powerful medium of this film.
The film gently persuades you to not judge or categorise life, understand the normal mores of perceived abnormalities and be with them as you would with your breath.
As a schoolboy, Little is a loner growing up with a single mother. As an adolescent, he has to brave bullying at school and a drug addicted mom at home. He also gets uncomfortable and quizzical about his growing alternate sexuality. As a grown man, he is busy burying his childhood vulnerabilities and the horror of a jail-term with silver braces on his teeth, a gold chain and rippling muscles built up with fierce exercises when he is not selling crack on the streets.
These are the obvious commonalities of the perceived Black existence in America, so what’s new you would say. The newness lies in the impeccable treatment of this slice of life by the director and his courage to be stark with not just the main character being gay but also being Black, underprivileged and impoverished too.
The abuse, the fight back, the violence, the emotional oppression and the final growing up is all shown with a striking reality that not just bites but also moves you without really shoving it down your throat.
Source: Sunday Pioneer, 19 February, 2017