Moonlight (2016)

Reseña escrita por el estudiante Mattia Di Sauro

Moonlight is a drama movie from 2016, directed and written by Barry Kenkins, starring Trevante Rodas, Janelle Monáe, and Mahershala Ali. The movie was nominated for 6 Golden Globes and won one of them, apart from winning the Oscar for Best Movie that year.

This is the life story of Chiron, a black kid who lives in a difficult neighborhood in Miami. He lives with his mother, who is a crack addict. Juan, the neighborhood’s drug dealer, starts to take care of Chiron, while Chiron’s mother does not approve of this. A few years later, Kevin, Chiron’s best friend and Chiron kiss, but just after this connection between them, Kevin is challenged to beat Chiron up and he does. That event finally triggers Chiron’s anger: he explodes and attacks the bully that challenged Kevin. This made him go to jail and this event marked a before and after in his life.

In the movie we see how Chiron tries to show himself as something he is not, he creates this whole façade to cover his true self. What is Chiron trying to achieve, show or hide of his identity with his way of acting? He lives with his real identity and sexuality hidden deep down. This is a choice he has made to save himself from social pressure and judgment, but it is very clear that this is negative and damaging. Chiron’s true identity is fighting to get out to the world. Once Chiron frees his identity from repression, he will feel complete and truly free. The character development is very precise: it really shows the struggles, and the use of close-ups to their faces and expressions helps to transmit their feelings in a very deep way.

I liked the film very much because of the way someone’s life story is portrayed through three chapters and shown to the public in a creative and ingenious way. Although the movie is narrated in a linear way, using ellipsis to jump fastly through time has the effect of showing life as chapters: three big divisions to express all life stages. I would totally recommend this film because it makes the viewer think, think about identity, sexuality, and freedom. The rating of this movie is a 4. It does not have a perfect score since the ending is not a closure of Chiron’s life but a beginning for the next stage of his life.