Moon – Charting a Course

by June 14th, 2009 - Culture » Film and TV »

I am not going to do that. The movie does have fun and perhaps somewhat unexpected plot twists…which I would like for a future audience to discover and digest in their own manner.

However, what I find uniquely enjoyable about Moon, is the fact that it does not rely on these revelations as its main source of entertainment and does not dwell on it like so many other movies as if to say…”See? Huh? That was crazy right? Totally unexpected, yeah? You can go home now…I got nothing else.”

The course that Moon follows is simply that. It is a character going through all the twists and turns of an odd journey without any brightly lit road signs to draw attention to them and the joy for the audience is not simply unraveling the riddle and pinning a ribbon on their brain. The joy is in seeing a real character deal as best they can with extraordinary circumstances…a rather surreal realism – a clever thing as I can’t quite take realism straight.

And in navigating the movie, the audience is given ample moral, philosophical, psychological and technological conundrums to marvel and wrap their brain around, free from any obvious cancerous message from the movie itself. Now…smarter people than I have been heard to remark that they wanted the movie to have a clearer message…to take a firm stance on issues…to have large neon lit letters that explained everything and distracted you from thinking long enough for an implant with correct answers written into its code to be installed at the base of your brain.

It is so rare that a “deep”, “thought-provoking” movie not actually put an end to that practice by beating you over the head with what they want you to know at the expense of the movie and the wonderful processes of of the human mind…and I truly appreciate that.

I must tip my hat to the craftsmanship of the director, Duncan Jones. With Moon, he developed and made real a thoughtful movie that was equally enjoyable and held the audience captive, my own attention being maintained longer than any other movie in recent memory…without even a single thought of ice creams or monkeys distracting me.

And it will be incredibly interesting to see what Duncan does next, according to CHUD, planning a mystery set in a future Berlin inspired largely by Blade Runner and existing in the same reality that the movie Moon took place in, a perk particular peaking my interest as I love those little touches that turn into an entire thriving new world.

Moon is in limited release somewhere on Earth. Pay a man money for a ticket and then sit in front of a screen for a few hours as light is projected onto it creating persistent motion from still images and sometimes telling a story.

Holy Shit Pants! All this and no reference to Eve Online. What the F, Mother F?

Editor’s Note:
I couldn’t quite fit it in properly, but Silent Running was a shit film.

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