Moonlight (2002)

Just perfect...

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

It's nice to find an European movie that takes some American basic ideas but develops it completely differently. It is typically American to mix crime/action and romantic story, but the ratio of the contents and the style of mixing doubtlessly shows it was made light years away. The movie starts with drug dealers who use a young Middle-East teenager to bring them new supplies. And very soon there is shooting, blood... almost American, but with almost no words, and this parsimony in dialogue persists during the whole movie.But in the next scene we see a young girl coping alone with her first period. This scene is much longer (and rather slow) and we understand that the girl is a real hero of the movie. In few minutes her life will be disturbed and changed after meeting the boy from the first scene. Though we don't see her as loser (especially not compared to a boy) she obviously thinks the other way: she is adopted, her foster parents have more successful professional than parental careers, she lives in foreign country in very modern house but, due to noise of nearby airport, her parents are selling it, she doesn't seem to have friends... so she immediately finds herself in charge of his fate. The rest of the movie we see how far is she ready to go to hide him (not only from perpetrators but her parents as well) and help him recover. Unlike similar movies coming either from USA or European authors who accepted American style (expecting either better commercial results or invitation to Hollywood) Paula van der Oest keeps crime part of the plot a bit in the background, however not letting us to forget it: everything that happens to the heroes is interrupted by those who chase the boy (and, later, the girl as well). And here we come to the main difference between Moonlight and ordinary American movie: in movies coming from USA action scenes are following one another and rare romantic scenes seem to be used only as a short rest to get some air, while action scenes in Moonlight have less tension, they are shorter, separated by other content and never look as if they are the reason why the movie exists at all.There are several other things I liked in the movie, photography being surely one of them. The fact that the movie was shot in Luxembourg gives it a special charm, because this is a very rare occasion to see this interesting country on a screen. The plot, however, doesn't depend on the location or its beauty, a lot of it is made indoors, but the camera work does a perfect job, and sometimes, unobtrusively, we are awarded by some really marvelous pictures.After so many good things that I wrote about Moolight people might get the impression that I am fascinated by it. Ufortunatelly, the movie fails even before its beginning, with screenplay. There are too many things that are hard to believe for a movie that – despite being artistic and romantic – tries to be realistic. I created a list of illogicalities that I've found in only 18 opening minutes, but because of space restriction you can read it on Message boards if you want.*** MAJOR SPOILERS ***Later in the movie illogicalities become less frequent, but again return in last several minutes. First, when Claire and boy make love and he dies during the same night. If his wounds were that severe, how was he able to do all those things before (only while running he shows signs of moderate pain), if not what suddenly got worse and killed him? It wouldn't surprise us at all after first 20-30 minutes, but now? And if his health was so bad to lead him to die, how was he able to make love? With his stomach wounds it wouldn't be easy even if he was recovering. Or, maybe, it wasn't their first sexual experience, so they knew how to get over all the problems? Also, we can imagine the very final scene as the act of revenge and mercy, but how did the girl know how to drive a van good enough to perform it? And why did she go to the van at all, what was she planning to do – never to return home, and why?But the thing that bothered me more than anything was the use of drugs. Not that I don't believe that kids take drugs (I live in a real world), but them? Claire isn't Christiane F. Coming from hopeless social background – did she have experience with drugs at home, with their rich and rather unusual parents? So, from an innocent looking girl who saves a boy she suddenly becomes his dealer? And the boy who was abused and almost killed because of drugs now doesn't know better than taking them, becoming almost no better than his abusers? This way the authors send us a very, very bad picture of their heros and consequently their generation. Such a pity for a movie that could have been so good...

POSSIBLE SPOILERS: I gave this movie 5 stars because it's equal parts good and bad. This is a road trip movie about first love between two teenagers from different worlds.. except one doesn't speak English. In fact, he doesn't seem to do much of anything except get shot, look confused, and then look angry. I found it difficult to feel much for him. It was a shame he was forced into such a terrible situation, but no real attempt was made to develop him beyond that. Fortunately, more is revealed about the girl's personality. The girl's parents are a little odd and don't seem to mind having a black leather jacket clad gangster wander around their property at night. Half the gangsters looking for the kids in this movie disappear as it goes on and we only learn the fate of a couple of them with the main gangster only bookending the film and completely disappearing in the middle. But there wasn't a lot to their characters anyway (though it would've been nice to at least know what became of them or see them get their comeuppance). The drug use by the boy and girl didn't bother me (it didn't look like they were enjoying themselves very much there at the end) but the nudity did surprise me. And the tragic scene immediately after the sex made me laugh aloud. I couldn't help it, it seemed too conveniently dramatic to be taken seriously. I did like the menstruation theme that ran through the whole film and thought it was cleverly used at times and I thought the very end was interesting. Overall, if there had been more dialogue and more happenings on the road trip I would've liked it better.

If there was a message the director of "Moonlight" was trying to put across, I missed it. However, one thing is certain, I got my fill of two kids' bathroom habits (or lack thereof.) We are not told why a young 13-year old girl, who is obviously loved by her parents and well-taken care of, decides to secretly harbor a young boy who has been shot once in the leg and once in the abdomen. Why she doesn't tell her parents remains a mystery. Of course, how she determined the boy's wounds were a result of being shot is even a more perplexing mystery. He doesn't speak English (or any other language in which she is apparently fluent.) This film begins with a very absorbing plot, but unfortunately the birds ate all its breadcrumbs, and inevitably along with its viewers, the film becomes fatally lost.

This is just about as bad as it gets folks. If this is 'European art' then the words 'Emperor's clothes' springs to mind. The only skill the director and producer have is to lead you along so that just as you think it can't get much worse, it does. The number of flaws in the plot is countless and I won't list them all here. The baddies drift around in their car; we are led to think they are following the two main actors, in which case why don't they just pounce. The final image of the girl, rotating as it does back and forth, summed it up for me: No one knew where this movie was going and no one knew how to finish it off. Uggh. I hope this was not made with European taxpayers money, but I have a horrible feeling it was.