U.S.A

1

Moonlight

Film Buff Ranking: 1

Moonlight (2016 film).pngIs Moonlight a future Oscar winner? It is everything an Oscar winner should be: beautifully shot, emotional, powerful. Furthermore it is also what the Oscars have lacked: a great non-biographical black film. This film reminded me of the early chapters of Ta-Nehisi Coate’s Between the World and Me or Kendrick Lamar’s Good Kid, M.A.A.D City because it shows the influence of environment on people. We are not always what we portray on the outside.

Why Watch Moonlight?
  • Change the way you think about people – did you know that the script writer was taught how to ride a bike by a drug dealer who saw him struggling to learn?
  • For beautiful Miami cinematography – sweat glistening in the moonlight
  • Could this be an Academy Award winner?
  • Is sexuality the biggest taboo in Western society?
The Breakdown

The first things we hear are Boris Gardiner’s ‘Every N****r Is a Star’ playing on a car radio. The driver, Juan, parks his car and walks over to another guy standing on the side of the road. They chat small talk to each other – the drug selling is all good. As Juan walks back to his car a kid runs past him, chased by a group of kids. The kid runs into an abandoned house and hides as the others throw stones through the window. Later, Juan tears down one of the window boards where the young kid is hiding and takes him under his wing.

Split into three chapters portraying another stage of Chiron’s life, Moonlight tracks Chiron’s progression. In each, he is almost unrecognisable physically, as he transforms from little kid to lanky teenager to muscly man. However, his eyes never change – he is always the shy kid found by Juan in chapter one.

In the final chapter you can see that Chiron has tried to bury the person he is. This is emphasised in the music he plays in his car. His music is ‘chopped and screwed’ – aka it is slowed down, scratched up, and cut up. You often can’t recognise music which has been ‘chopped and screwed’. Similarly you can’t recognise Chiron. He has been ‘chopped and screwed’ like the music. The person he was has been distorted so much that we no longer recognise him.

Conclusion

Moonlight is not just a ‘black film’, Moonlight is a universal film that sheds a light on everyone who cannot be who they are. It applies to those who try to repress their sexuality, those who try to fit in by being someone they are not, and those who cannot be who they want. Most people have compromised their self to fit in at some point (at school or beyond).

In a similar way, this film never tries to be something pretentious or important. It has no idols or figures to be revered like the fiction or non-fictional films featured at the Academy Awards before. This is a real story in a sea of films filled with their own self-importance. Go and watch it!

My Sources - The Director, Screenwriter, and Cast
My Sources – The Director, Screenwriter, and Cast
2

It’s Such A Beautiful Day

Film Difficulty Ranking: 2

I have to admit, I had never heard of Don Hertzfeldt or It’s Such A Beautiful Day before I saw this film recommended on MUBI. But, for all of those sceptical about the artistic quality of animation (do these people still exist?) this one is a must watch. Combining hand-drawings with philosophy musings, I am looking forward to watching more from this obviously talented director.

Why Watch It’s Such A Beautiful Day?
  • It’s in English – no subtitle allergic excuses here.
  • Evidence that even you could animate – all you need is a pencil and a camera.
  • To see the darkly funny life of Bill.
  • Animation at it’s most innovative and interesting.

It’s A Beautiful Day opens with a shot looking up at trees swaying in the breeze and clouds passing by. A narrative starts, introducing us to Bill, a stick-figure man, walking down the street. Bill recognises someone approaching him, but cannot remember his name. As they get closer, he still can’t find a name to match this familiar face. As they pass he jumbles his greeting, saying “how’s up?” and keeps walking. They awkwardly look around at the same time but keeping walking away from each other. Bill never saw him again.

Ahh! I’ve tried to give you a sample of the opening scene of this film but the comedy doesn’t translate too well. So go watch the film! Pretty sure it’s on Netflix!

This film is different from other animations, and other films for that matter, in that it has a narrator for the whole movie. Someone else is commentating on Bill’s life, which made me feel like an obvious observer, unlike the immersive “I feel like I’m there with them” approach. However, don’t be put off by this, as it really works for this film. The humour is amplified by our third person perspective as we can identify with Bill for the funny moments, and not be too immersed in the film to identify with Bill in the darker moments (allowing the dark comedy to exist).

The split screen elements are kind of cool too. The whole film is shot through little windows into Bill’s life (you’ll see what I mean when you start watching it). The windows represent Bill’s world; his hopes and happiness and his fears and worries. The windows expand with hope and happiness, and contract and split up when Bill faces problems. Outside art also makes appearances to exacerbate both his happiness and his negative emotions. In this way, Hertzfeldt effectively portrays the emotional ups and downs of a stick figure – creative guy!

My favourite scene was of Bill sitting on a bus as rain pours. He is framed in a centre window with four windows in each corner of the screen with different pictures of rain falling. The music reaches an emotional crescendo in this scene and really helps us feel Bill’s emotions. (Amazingly powerful considering Bill is just a little stick-figure).

I’d recommend this film to any fan of animation and any fan of listening and watching ordinary lives with a handful of philosophical thought. I hope that you, like I will be planning to watch some more Hertzfeldt after viewing this one!

3

Icarus (U.S.) – Are All Sports Stars on Drugs?

Icarus Film Difficulty Ranking: 2

As the World Cup continues in Russia, the Tennis stars of the world play at Wimbledon, and the world’s premiere cycling tour kicks off in France, there’s no better time to watch Icarus. You’ll learn about the effects of doping, start doubting the even playing ground of all sports, before asking yourself: “what if they’re all doping?” To find out more about doping in sport and the political stakes of doping, watch Icarus on Netflix.

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Why Watch Icarus?
  • If you’re a sports fan
  • If you like conspiracies
  • Meet a friendly Russian doping expert
  • Because it won the Best Documentary at the 2018 Academy Awards
The Breakdown

Meet Bryan Fogel. He’s an amateur cyclist who was on the brink of turning professional when he was hit with an injury. Whilst he didn’t get to cycle alongside Lance Armstrong like some of his friends, he still idolized the best cyclist from his country and generation for his 7 Tour de France wins. But, his view of professional cycling and Lance Armstrong came crashing down when Armstrong finally admitted to doping in 2013.

How did Fogel react? By choosing the toughest 7-day amateur cycling race available and riding it twice. Firstly, he rode it clean, and secondly on performance enhancing drugs to analyse their effect.

Long story short, he finished in the top 20 clean, but couldn’t improve his positioning whilst doping. But, what might have been a movie about how doping won’t immediately make you the best in any sport luckily doesn’t end there.

That’s because the guy helping Fogel to dope was the director of the Russian anti-doping laboratory, Grigory Rodchenkov. They both become friends as Rodchenkov helped him through his doping process. Rodchenkov gives him plenty of advice and laughs, and even hosts him at his home in Russia.

However, Rodchenkov later drops a bombshell: he oversaw the state-sponsored doping programme for the 2012 Olympics in London and the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. This confession turns Icarus into an investigation into the worldwide doping scandal that banned all Russian athletes from competing in the 2016 Olympics and rocked the sporting world.

Conclusion and What to Watch Next

Icarus is one of the most gripping documentaries out there, especially if you’re a sports fan. It’s got an interesting premise (how much does doping help) which sets up the story, but the twist lands in Fogel’s lap because of Rodchenckov’s confession. From there it’s the two of them versus the Russian State and the U.S. court system.

If you’re looking for more great documentaries, check out the equally thrilling Citizenfour about Edward Snowden. Like Icarus it contains a whistleblower vs. the state, but instead of sport’s doping, it’s a worldwide spy network.

Or, if you’re looking for a sport documentary which focuses more on the sport, check out the brilliant basketball documentary, Hoop Dreams. It’s like Boyhood meets Basketball.

 

4

The Wolves (Los Lobos) – Berlinale 2020

The Wolves is a spiritual sister to Sean Baker’s The Florida Project. Instead of a boisterous white mum and daughter living in a motel by Disney World, The Wolves features a single mum with two young boys that have just crossed the border into the United States. The kids are happy to follow their mum and spend more and more days passing time in a shabby apartment on the understanding that they’re going to Disneyland.

The two boys are stuck at home everyday making their own entertainment whilst their mum works double shifts to try and create a better future. There’s no school for them to go to and they’re forbidden from leaving the apartment. Any chances of being caught and deported must be avoided.

Despite being stuck in the apartment all day, The Wolves is presented with a lot of warm nostalgia. There’s a slow and lazy guitar soundtrack that generates the same warm melancholic tones of films imbued in Americana like Mud, Bombay Beach, or even parts of Thelma and Louise. There’s also warmth in the games that the two boys play to keep themselves occupied and the drawings that come to life in their imagination. Even though the melancholic soundtrack and bleak surroundings hint that the American dream is out of reach, their playfulness shows it won’t stop them dreaming.

The Wolves is an ode to the faceless people of America. Not just the immigrants that cross the southern border seeking a better life, but the homeless, and anybody scraping together a life living below the poverty line. A few times in the film, Samuel Kishi Leopo (the director) inserts montages of portraits of people from different racial and ethnic backgrounds living within the new family’s community. All the portraits feature people staring straight into the camera like you might see in a National Geographic magazine, showing them without anything to hide. It shows them purely, in front of their humble homes. What these people have in common is an absence of the white picket fenced house promised by the American dream. It’s a sign that being American, or simply being in America for those that migrate north, doesn’t automatically grant you a well spring to health and prosperity. The Wolves honestly highlights the people that the country has left behind.

For more films from the Berlin film festival, head to our Berlinale home page.

5

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night – The Vampire Western

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night Film Difficulty Ranking: 3

This film is like nothing I have ever seen. Who thought you could mix the Western genre with Vampires and end up with a decent film about Female empowerment. Add in the fact that it is shot in black and white film and in Farsi and you’ve found the most unique film out there to brag to your friends about. In case you’re still doubtful, I suggest you check out this film as soon as you can and make up your own mind.

Why Watch A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night?
  • Whilst there are a load of Farsi Vampire Western films, this one really stands out!
  • To see an old woman in a cowboy shirt dancing with a balloon.
  • For some bad-ass female empowerment!
  • For an example of a great foreign language film from the U.S.
  • Black & White films can still look cool (see Polish Academy-Award winner Ida and Embrace of the Serpent for more evidence)
The Breakdown

A man is smoking a cigarette by a fence. He leans towards a gap in the fence, looking to see if anyone is around. He finishes his cigarette, squashes it under his foot and disappears through the gap in the fence. A few seconds later he reappears carrying a cat and walks off. (And that is how you get yourself a pet cat).

Whilst the cat-stealing man takes the opening scene, the real star of the show is the main girl (she never reveals her name). She could well be a feminist icon. In contrast to the macho man (described in the next paragraph) she is a quiet girl who does what she wants. No one can control her, even though our macho man thinks he can. She’s a Vampire/Western superhero sticking up for prostitutes and deconstructing male power.

Our macho man, on the other hand, is an iconic idiot. He has a broken heart tattooed on the back of his neck, a goatee and a Fu-Manchu esque motorbike moustache. Don’t worry, you don’t even have to feel bad at judging his appearance as he is a moron. After his tells his prostitute to get lost without paying her, he encounters our heroine and takes her to his apartment. Here, he does the most obnoxious mating ritual you will see on film. First he snorts a few lines of cocaine. Then he opens a silver briefcase and counts out his stacks of cash. Next, he closes the case and picks up two dumbbells to do a few biceps curls. Finally, he does a few semi-erotic dance moves in front of our motionless (presumably shocked) heroine.

Conclusion

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is one of the most unique foreign films you will see. I haven’t seen anyone mix genres like Ana Lily Amirpour does in this film (Vampire and Western). However, if you liked this film, I’d suggest you check out the Iranian horror film Under the Shadow. Or if you’re looking for great Vampire films, check out What we do in the Shadows.