Moonlight and Art films

Moonlight tells the story of a boy, a teenager, and a man. Classical Hollywood films usually focus on a specific time in the character’s life when there is a problem and there is a way to solve it, and these films usually have an ending. Moonlight is rather the opposite. We see parts of Chiron’s life. The movie shows clips of his life, leaving some spaces empty. We don’t know his whole story, but we know his feelings through the things he experienced. We don’t see Chiron having a specific goal in life; rather, we see how external forces affect him —societal expectations, the environment he is living in, and the trauma. The film rejects classic cause and effect storytelling, and has narrative ambiguity in order to challenge stereotypes on Black masculanity and queerner, but also living a space for the audience to interpret the film. Additionally, Moonlight uses realism in the locations of the film, making the audience feel more involved in the story of Chiron and his experiences, showing the external forces more clearly. Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight portrays a young Black man’s struggle to navigate his queer identity within the constraints of stereotypes of black masculinity; the film’s rejection of classical casualty, use of narrative ambiguity, and commitment to realism mirror Chiron’s internal conflict as he deal with the intersection of race, sexuality, and self-acceptance. 

Different from classical Hollywood films that follow a cause-and-effect structure, Moonlight disrupts the causality in Chiron’s life story (Bordwell 57). The film uses sharp jumps between its parts, and it is divided into 3 parts of Chiron’s life —Little, Chiron and finally Black. There is so little narrative linkage between these 3 parts. For example, the first scene we met Chiron is when he is running from a group of boys (00:02:31-00:04:00). We don’t know why he is running away; however, him running away from these boys can symbolise how he is running from the stereotypes the society brings. Throughout the whole film, there is a constant bulling towards Chiron. He feels like an outsider, and there is no clear reason why these people have this outrageous hate towards him. Chiron does not harm anyone, or causes disruption. Patrick, the bully, thus, is not placed like an antagonist; he represents the whole idea of societal expactations. Society expects Chiron to be masculine and “manly” in order to be a part of the society, in this case the friend group of Patrick. Hence, the scene where Chiron hits Patrick with the chair (01:04:46-01:05:08) might represent Chiron finally accepting his identity, and force back at these stereotypes even if it means he has to go to jail and leave the town. 

After this scene, we jump into years later and Chiron becomes an adult., An empty space in the life line of Chiron is shown. This is how the film uses ambiguity, which resists providing clear answers about Chiron’s decisions between these two time lines (Bordwell 57). We don’t know what troubles got him after the outburst of him hitting his bully with a chair. However, we know that he started acting like a tough guy like his mentor Juan. Later on the last part however, he sees the man who caused him to have this outburst and find his true identity, reflecting how a character can cause Chiron to be a different person. 

Throughout the film, many of Chiron’s most significant moments are in silence, without any dialogue present. It is so extreme that everyone around Chiron stress that he is a man of few words. For example, in the final scene, the silence of the intimacy between Chiron and Kevin leaves their relationship undefined; thus, the film refuses to set a traditional ending (01:45:43-01:46:00). This means that the audience does not know how Chiron will move on with his life. However, this information is not crucial to the main message. Chiron knows who he is and he knows his true identity, even though he hides it trough his hyper-masculine aesthetic in the last part of the film. His emotional vulnerability in Kevin’s presence reveals that he knows his identity even though he film does not feel the need to define his identity. By leaving these moments open-ended, Moonlight rejects rigid categorizations of masculinity and queerness, illustrating the fluidity and complexity of identity. 

Another feature of Moonlight is that there is a constant wide shot of the locations. For example, the scene where Juan takes Chiron to eat in a restaurant starts as a long shot and then zooms in to characters (00:05:48-00:06:09). In this way the film is able to show the life going around these characters. The constant wide shots through the film are there to show  the contrast between Chiron’s internal world and the external forces. Jenkins achieves this through cinematograph, color and sound design, which shows Chiron’s emotional state. The color blue, for instance, shows the contrast between Chiron and Juan. While Juan is nicknamed Blue, Chiron is nicknamed as Black. The line "Black boys look blue under the moonlight," which said by Juan represents that moonlight has an effect on these hyper-masculine characters. It shows their true identity. Juan has no shame on showing his identity nor his vulnerability, that is why he is nicknamed as Blue. The very last scene of the film is young Chiron standing on the beach looking directly at the camera under moonlight with the color of blue (01:46:08-01:46:27). This scene is crucial because it shows that Chiron is finally comfortable by his vulnerability as Juan described earlier in the film. Also, the tranquil piano sound in this scene compared to the rap music in the last chapter of the film (01:06:59-01:07:07) shows that Chiron was hiding behind this masculine character he was pretending to be. By all of these techniques, Moonlight allows the audience to feel Chiron’s loneliness, longing, and self-discovery, making his journey very personal. 

Through its rejection of classical causality, the use of narrative ambiguity, and realism, Moonlight redefined cinematic representations of Black masculinity and queerness. By breking from traditional hollywood storytelling techniques, the film mirrors Chiron’s struggles to fit into society.  In doing so, Moonlight expands the possibilities of representing marginalized histories, offering a deeply humanizing portrait of self-acceptance and resilience.