Crashing Waves

As for character development and pull of the story, "Moonlight" may not be impressive, but structurally, which I think is arguably more important, it's masterful. The title denotes the cinematography--lighting effects traced back to a story told by Mahershala Ali's Juan in the movie, but the three-chapter plot is based in the waves. A few forceful events hit us, followed by fades to black before the next wave catches us up with Chiron days if not years later. There's a formal elegance to this focus on the protagonist's formative life moments. We watch how he's raised by his drug-addicted mother and his drug-dealing father figure (a memorable Oscar-winning performance by Ali), then it's on to his first sexual experience before his life is altered by violence and legal punishment. The motif of the breeze coming from the seas off the Miami beaches is apt, too. They mark the three happiest, if not cleansing in their symbolic connection to water, turning points in his life, from learning to swim as a child, the sexual encounter on the beech, to his pausing in a parking lot during the final episode.

I suppose the focus on African-American and gay characters, along with however that comments on issues of masculinity, is what may have garnered "Moonlight" a lot of critical praise and, ultimately, led to its surprise Best Picture Oscar, but this is less a social message picture than an exercise in reconstructing the "hood film" genre, as it's more of a mood or thematic piece rather than following the usual psychological motivations of characters out to achieve some goal or exploiting some controversy for sensationalism. In some ways, although not of the same genre, "Boyhood" (2014) was similarly impressive. In "Moonlight," though, it doesn't even really matter whether the three Chirons thoroughly resemble each other or not. It's plot and theme over story; place and atmosphere over character identification. It's not that this informs us less about the character and his journey, either, as we, instead, get a better sense, following figures from behind or bobbing in the water beside them, of how it feels to be transformed by the place beside those crashing waves and how events ripple through to determine that hero's journey. And, even if the spectator isn't likewise affected, at least there is the exquisite cinematography and editing to admire.