Moonlight Boy is a drama film directed by Barry Jenkins, which tells the story of Chiron from childhood to youth, gradually discovering his sexual orientation, withstanding external criticism and internal struggles, and finding his true self. The film was released in the United States on October 21, 2016.
On February 26, 2017, "Moonlight Boy" won the Best Picture Award at the 89th Academy Awards. In November 2017, Empire magazine ranked 4th in the top ten films of 2017. In September 2019, the film was selected as "100 Best Films of the 21st Century" by the British newspaper The Guardian, ranking 8th.
As a very personal literary film, the report card handed over by "Moonlight Boy" is bright enough, not so in line with the appetite of the Oscars but won the Oscar for best picture in one fell swoop, which is not a victory of political correctness, but the film has its own dazzling value.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > weakens the grand context and focuses on the inner emotions</h1>
The theme of Moonlight Boy is very topical, involving black people and homosexuality, but in such a controversial context, the film does not involve any racism, and it is not a gay film. The film uses almost all black actors, the absence of white characters makes the development of the story seem reasonable, the director has no intention of criticizing any realistic topics and provoking the so-called anger of the masses, he just uses the film to tell the life of a small person, trying to explore the secrets of his heart.
Compared with "Green Book", which is also the Oscar best picture, the film's narrative of black themes is completely different, in "Green Book", we see the fierce collision between the two races, black musicians for the color of the voice and anxious shouts, but in "Moonlight Boy", the director dilutes the black identity of the characters, and even deliberately avoids talking about the background and social problems experienced by any black people, focusing on the subtle individuals, presenting a small story in the background. This narrative style is very much in the director's personal style.
As another theme of the film, homosexuality also seems to be only as a simple feature of the character, and has not been specifically mentioned, throughout the film, there are only three scenes related to the topic of the same sex, most of the time, the film wants to express a boy growing up in an environment of drugs and violence, the pursuit and desire for safety, alluding to the social turmoil, so homosexuality is more like a symbol mark, symbolizing people's desire for love.
Influenced by "The Best of Times", the director adopts a three-part narrative approach, describing the life of the characters at three different stages. All the storylines are as bland as clear water, with no ups and downs, and the characters do not have difficult choices. The director adopts the simplest linear narrative, but has the ability to let the audience go deep into the heart of the characters to feel a shock, the frequent use of subjective shots, shaky pictures, the director is forcing the audience to use Chiron's perspective to see and feel, the virtual focus lens to create a sense of confusion in the picture, the closure and suppression of the metaphorical characters, the director uses a unique film language to let the audience go deep into the inner emotions, saving the plot weakness caused by the discrete narrative.
The director sets the film in a very controversial background, but weakens both themes at the same time, focusing on the inner feelings of a boy growing up, which is the most valuable part of this film.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > use the blue sea to witness the growth of the characters</h1>
"Moonlight Boy" also has a translated name, called "Blue Moonlight", blue as the main color has always run through the film, Juan's blue car, the endless blue sea, home arrangement, blue lighting, light and dreamy, creating a kind of obsessive unreal atmosphere, fit the characters are entangled in the sad atmosphere of life. In the film, Juan says that black people are called Blue, and that blue is like a soul color of the black race, which has a sad mood and symbolizes hope. At the end of the moonlight sprinkled with the blue sea that shot, the picture is filled with deep blue agility, boundless, black people are blue, that look back, is the review and recognition of their own life, is the vision and hope for the future.
Blue is also the color of the sea, in the film, the sea as an important image mainly appears three times, in the narrative of three stories, the first time in Chiron's childhood, Chiron and Juan sit on the beach, Juan tells Chiron the story of the moonlight boy, that time it is Chiron who knows his identity through others. The second time, in Chiron's youth, he and Kevin sat snuggled up to each other in front of the sea, and they kissed and caressed, which was Chiron expressing his love by facing his true heart. The third time, at the end of the film, the adult Chiron transforms back into a child standing in front of the blue and endless sea, he looks back, deep pupils looking at the camera, like the story Juan told him at the beginning, the black man is blue in the moonlight, at that moment, Chiron knows that others can't help you make any decisions, only yourself who can decide who you are.
Through the image of the sea, the director witnesses the changes in Chiron's growth, from the initial ignorance to the final recognition and acceptance of himself, over the years, Chiron's appearance has changed a lot, but the director finally let him change back to the original imitation, which is like a process of reconciliation with himself set up, his heart has always been the young child, insisting on his original beliefs, never changed.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > nod to Wong Kar-wai's style</h1>
The movie "Moonlight Boy" also has an inseparable name, that is, Wong Kar Wai. Throughout the film, we can see the director's tribute to Wong Kar-wai, and some of the shots also make the audience feel like they are watching Wong Kar-wai's films, including the scene on the road, where the director uses the soundtrack from Wong Kar-wai's film "Spring Breaks", Cucurrucucu Paloma. Wong Kar-wai is a very personal director, and Barry, under his influence, is gradually forming his own abnormal stylization.
The film's tribute to Wong Kar-wai can be most intuitively seen from the tone. Wong Kar-wai's films have a very unified overall tone, he likes to use strong and dreamy colors to impact the audience's eyeballs, like the blue and yellow in "Spring Break", the red of "Fancy Years", in "Moonlight Boy", Chiron's mother stands in the corridor of the shot, the rose red tone enhances the saturation of the picture, impacting the audience's senses, and the light color system of the wall has a clear contrast, very Wong Kar-wai charm.
In terms of composition, we can also discover a large number of tribute shots of wong Kar-wai by the director in the film. Like Chiron's scene in the carriage corresponds to the last Li Yaohui taking the train in "Spring Break"; the scene where Chiron and Kevin are reunited and sit opposite each other in the restaurant, corresponding to the interaction between Zhou Muyun and Li Lizhen in the tea restaurant in "Fancy Years"; at the end of the film, the young Chiron faces the vast sea, and can also find the source from the shot of Ah Fei's mother facing a large piece of sky clouds in "Ah Fei Zheng Biography". It is not difficult to see that "Moonlight Boy" is indeed deeply influenced by Wong Kar-wai, and the director himself mentions that he is a fan of Wong Kar-wai' films, perhaps even he does not know that some of Wong Kar-wai's stylized images have penetrated into his thinking to help his own expression.
In addition, the stream-of-consciousness narrative of "Moonlight Boy" and the rich lens language have more or less similarities with Wong Kar-wai's films, we can read and understand the director's intentions to pay tribute, and also see the director's personal style gradually formed on this basis, with similarities but it is the director's own thing, "Moonlight Boy" provides new possibilities for the Oscar Best Picture in recent years, and we also believe that such bizarre art films will gain greater recognition in the future.