<b>J Jagannath:</b> Coming of age

Jenkins made a movie with such cool intelligence and sorrow that it's beyond pulchritudinous belief

Identity politics” is the natural habitat of Barry Jenkins. His debut film, Medicine for Melancholy, was the most anti-date movie I ever watched, but it still evoked the vibes of a Before Sunrise. After a one-night stand, a black couple in San Francisco visits the Museum of the African Diaspora, runs into an affordable housing coalition meeting.

It took nearly eight years for Jenkins to make his sophomore film but it’s well worth the wait. Moonlight got eight Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay. Set in the projects of Miami, this marvellous drama about rage and grief tells the life of Little/Chiron in three chapters.

The movie is based on the play, In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue, by Tarell Alvin McCraney, a MacArthur Genius who also co-wrote the screenplay with Jenkins.

The movie starts off chronologically with Little (a hypnotic Alex Hibbert) whom we see evading school bullies until he bumps into Mahershala Ali in a career transforming role as crack dealer Juan. He and his girlfriend (Janelle Monáe) give Little the refuge he needs from his unhinged dope addict of a mom (Naomie Harris).

Despite Ali’s understated histrionics, the first 30 minutes of Moonlight are digressive and even Hibbert’s transfixing visage couldn’t get me out of my stupor. But the movie starts hitting its stride when the second chapter unfolds when an adolescent Chiron, Little was his nick name, comes to terms with his sexuality. Ashton Sanders as the pained, lanky teenager is a revelation and gives the movie its tag of “heartstring plucker”.

In chapter three, Trevante Rhodes is wonderful as Chiron, the hardened adult who learnt his lesson from a grave mistake in his teens. The last 20 minutes of the movie are of him trying to rekindle an unknown relationship with Kevin, the only person he ever romantically touched.

Moonlight

Moonlight is an important movie in more than one way. I won’t care a whit about La La Land’s fortunes at Oscars because for all its breeziness, the movie is a giant mansplaining session and warped jazz narrative. At a time when the Black Lives Matter movement gains prominence even more under the Trump administration, Moonlight is quite possibly the most important black movie in the longest time. Earlier this week, Adele won a Grammy for the best album of 2016 and everyone knows Beyoncé deserved it for her fabulous album Formation.

The predominant white person narrative is the reason why black culture fails to come out of its chrysalis. Run The Jewels, Solange, Beyoncé, Roxane Gay, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Ava DuVernay are already doing God’s work but the Academy bestowing Moonlight with some Oscars love on February 26 would be ideal.

Among the movie’s unforgettable moments are Little asking Ali about the meaning of a homosexual curse word. The honesty with which Ali confronts that innocent question is the reason he’s been lapping up awards this season. Before this, I have only seen him as the power-thirsty lobbyist in House of Cards.

James Laxton’s cinematography drenches Miami with bright, boppy, holiday-movie colours even in the most grievous moments. Even in its brow-clutchingly slow moments, Laxton’s camera pirouettes around like an expert ballet dancer that Miami has been producing since forever. 

McCraney’s play, which was a roman-à-clef, has been nicely distilled by Jenkins onto the screen, ably supported by a juicily acted cast. I can finally forgive Florida for voting for Trump. Jenkins’ love for Hong Kong auteur Wong Kar Wai is visible in each frame. He brings sparing details, coruscating imagery and inflects the screen with some gorgeous splotches, just like the man behind Chungking Express and In the Mood for Love.

I know I’m in the minority but the fact is that I didn’t like Boyhood. Apart from a yawn-inducing internal conceit that Richard Stuart Linklater took as many years to make the movie as its protagonist, I wished he invested some time in making the script more interesting. In those terms, Moonlight is the alternative Boyhood.

Irrespective of its Oscar fate, we should thank Jenkins for making a movie with such cool intelligence and sorrow that it’s beyond pulchritudinous belief. 

jagannath.jamma@bsmail.in