At the center of Berry
Jenkins' film Moonlight stirs a volatile fusion of masculine
aggression, low-class struggles, and homophobia. Perpetually looming over
Chiron’s narrative arc and the social realities that the film explores is its
poetic title, “moonlight.” The title of films often indicates where we might be
able to derive meaning from their visuals or narrative themes. Moonlight is no
exception; it is a hermeneutic compass that, with its multifarious romantic and
sexually charged associations, guides us through the film’s intricate
deconstruction of masculinity. The most radical subversive gestures that the
film makes occur when Chiron is away from his impoverished neighborhood and is seeking solace under the ocean sky.
The steadfast conceptions of
masculinity and heteronormative sexuality that oppress Chiron loosen in the
first chapter of the film when drug-dealer Juan, who at this point acts as
Chiron’s only Father figure, recounts to Chiron how he was once told by an
older white woman that all black boys look blue in the moonlight. Juan confides
in Chiron through affirming to him that he is neither black nor blue; he ought
to declare his own individuality and be his own man. While the white woman in
Juan’s story may have commandeered the subdued glow of the moon as another
means of disparaging black men, to young Chiron it becomes associated with
Juan’s compassion and guidance. The rest of the scene has Juan and Chiron’s
bodies move with a gentle but determined force against the waves of the ocean.
Juan eventually picks up Chiron and, through comforting and calming him,
teaches him how to float and swim.
The semi-submerged camera
angle allows us to better contrast the turbulent condition of the waves with
the peace and serenity shared by Juan and Chiron. The waves may be unstable,
but the ocean’s infinite depth and scope provide Juan and Chiron a sense of adventure
and freedom that is denied to them in everyday life. This environmental
aesthetics collapses rather than reinforces classic distinctions between self
and world, body and mind. This collapse of distinctions is made more explicit
later on in the film when Chiron tells his friend Kevin that when he cries his tears
accumulate to such a degree that he feels he might transform into a large,
single teardrop that will merge with the ocean.
In our second seaside
encounter, the film pits images of the ocean waves slowly climbing up the beach
alongside the facial expressions and bodily gestures of Chiron as Kevin
sexually pleasures him. A connection is made between the natural phenomenon of
rising tides and sexual tension, specifically the act of a man’s hand slowly
easing up another man’s leg. This combination of primal ferocity and loving
compassion is found earlier in Juan, too. His rugged, masculine physique is
intermixed with his tender care toward Chiron as he holds him in the ocean. The
moonlight and ocean are presented as symbols of freedom, a space where the typical codes for masculinity and femininity are transgressed.
In this way the film
preserves Romantic idealism through presenting nature and darkness as an outlet
from mundane cares. At night, the individual turns to the self and heaven, and
liberates their soul. There is no reason at night; instead, we look at the moon
and embrace madness (hence the connection between the Latin luna and lunatic). The moonlight represents the lucent transparency of
clear thinking and open sexuality. With its insistence on normalcy, argues the philosopher and sociologist Michel Foucault, society
remains only "straight" and therefore hostile to alternative forces of
life.
The moon last appears
when Chiron is anxiously following Kevin to his apartment. The most resonant
aspects of the scene are the long pauses that are interspersed throughout the
calm conversation between Chiron and Kevin. We must be careful not to regard
the pregnant pauses in the conversation as an absence of language; such pauses
induce what William Wordsworth calls awkwardness, that is, intense emotion
imperfectly expressed. The silence is not cold or lifeless; rather, it
indicates the heat of their attachment. The scene is exceptionally tense
because the pauses highlight the gap between what can be felt and what can be
spoken. It is clear that throughout Chiron’s life he would have risked great
humiliation and possible physical harm if he expressed his interest in men. We
also sense that it is not only sexual gratification that Chiron seeks in his
life; it is a feeling of intimacy and a refuge from the world that has so
terribly isolated him. The final image of Kevin embracing Chiron in his arms is
a powerful one because it incites our universal desire for shared space and
warmth. We further identify with a queer black man from a poor background.
The
film’s title begs an affinity with Allen Ginsberg’s 1955 poem "Howl," which also deals directly
with homosexuality and masculinity, albeit in a more politically charged
manner, and from the perspective of a white man. Despite their contrasts in style and the differing historically determined social
realities they confront, both allude to nature and primal gestures as metaphors
of freedom. While “Howl” presented poetry as a thunderous recourse to social
oppression, Jenkins' Moonlight,
not unlike Chiron’s moonlight, throws us into celestial reverie and conjures a
bond between existentially isolated individuals. The reflective light of the
film screen casts a soft glow that does not wholly enlighten but rather
solicits sympathetic imagination. Moonlight wonderfully raises our perceptual awareness to the real psychological violence that is inflicted on marginalized groups who are underrepresented on the big screen. It is this characteristic that defines socially engaged cinema.