Moon (2009)
October 2nd 2010 16:38
How often does a movie come around that makes you really....think?
How often is that movie a science-fiction movie?
I think to understand why this movie made me think, I have to go over it again. Re-watch it as I type.
The movie under scrutiny here is "Moon" - written and directed, as a stunning debut, by Duncan Jones, son of this guy who used to look like this, so it's not surprising he made a movie about this. And quite a sweet nod to his father's early work shows he's obviously still close to him, which is always nice to see (in showbiz and "normal" families).
His movie is, for want of a better phrase, absolutely stunning in its simplicity. And there it is - the reason why it draws you in and forces you to make sense of it. Every part of this film - the subdued acting, the clinically bare sets and the extremely isolated setting - is presented to us at such a pace that we have time to stop and smell the roses, to figure out exactly what is going on and what we think it means to us. In essence, it's like watching Big Brother, but set on the moon and with only one person: Sam.
Played by Sam Rockwell, carrying this movie,and turning in one of the best performances I've ever seen, especially for a sci-fi flick. On paper, this is a one-man show, but if you've seen his work in Lawn Dogs and The Green Mile (hell, even The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy), you'll know he has the chops for it. I might have preferred him to let a bit looser with the emotions during the tenser scenes, particularly in light of the fact that the only other presence on board is...a robot. Named GERTY.
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Speaking of which, if there were ever a voice perfectly suited to a robotic curator of a space station, Kevin Spacey pretty much nailed it. His soothing tone provides just the right balance of robot-aping-human as it does of robot-being-robot, and it's the little touches given to him by the filmmakers, such as his interactions with Sam or his endearing use of emoticons (to, naturally, convey emotion) that start to make you wonder how much of the film is just as much about GERTY's self-awareness as it is about Sam's.
Driving the pace of the movie is the music, composed by the ever-impressive Clint Mansell, who has scored both Requiem For A Dream and The Fountain. The recurrent theme, "Welcome To Lunar Industries", has been used in ads here and there, but really should only exist for this piece of fiction. It's truly haunting, and stays you long after the final credits have stopped rolling. And it's there again - that simplicity, a sprinkling of a few, unsettling piano notes and a quietly epic drum track - that keeps encouraging you to just sit there and watch things unfold.
No crowd of rag-tag rebel scientists with explosive chemistry and maybe one token romance. No overblown score with a bloated and near-arthritic horn section. No choppy circa '92 MTV-style butcher-editing or indie-cred steadicam for faux-realism. No big names. No patronising narration. No designer spacewear. No buckets of blood or expensive CGI. No 3D glasses.
The simpler the components of a movie, the easier it can get its point across. Much like the atmosphere of space, it's very quiet, fairly slow-moving, and very unspoiled by superfluous background noise. It feels like we're watching a documentary, or video notes of a study of someone's awakening.
So after all of that, what is the point of this movie? Saying existentialism might be a bit too easy, but why can't that just be it? Through the various twists offered throughout the narrative, we can see pretty clearly that the world has changed; values have changed, and, much like Sam (or indeed, GERTY for that matter), there is no hope of us belonging unless we conform to the bigger truth. And therein lies the bleakness, of not only the movie's current reality, but also that sense of self-awareness, that criticism of existentialism, that maybe ignorance is bliss to avoid suffering.
Pretentious viewers can snub this idea, but if you're watching this movie more than once, you will see that, despite its simplicity, it's still a drip-feed. Nuances of performances, a line here and there, a facial expression, a mention of events before the movie, a joke...all of these begin to complete the picture of how you come to know Sam and GERTY to feel by the time the movie is over.
With a running time of just 97 minutes, the film feels oddly short for sci-fi. But this along with the pacing makes this movie that much more re-watchable. And the truth is, I'm still thinking.
How often is that movie a science-fiction movie?
I think to understand why this movie made me think, I have to go over it again. Re-watch it as I type.
The movie under scrutiny here is "Moon" - written and directed, as a stunning debut, by Duncan Jones, son of this guy who used to look like this, so it's not surprising he made a movie about this. And quite a sweet nod to his father's early work shows he's obviously still close to him, which is always nice to see (in showbiz and "normal" families).
His movie is, for want of a better phrase, absolutely stunning in its simplicity. And there it is - the reason why it draws you in and forces you to make sense of it. Every part of this film - the subdued acting, the clinically bare sets and the extremely isolated setting - is presented to us at such a pace that we have time to stop and smell the roses, to figure out exactly what is going on and what we think it means to us. In essence, it's like watching Big Brother, but set on the moon and with only one person: Sam.
Played by Sam Rockwell, carrying this movie,and turning in one of the best performances I've ever seen, especially for a sci-fi flick. On paper, this is a one-man show, but if you've seen his work in Lawn Dogs and The Green Mile (hell, even The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy), you'll know he has the chops for it. I might have preferred him to let a bit looser with the emotions during the tenser scenes, particularly in light of the fact that the only other presence on board is...a robot. Named GERTY.
Speaking of which, if there were ever a voice perfectly suited to a robotic curator of a space station, Kevin Spacey pretty much nailed it. His soothing tone provides just the right balance of robot-aping-human as it does of robot-being-robot, and it's the little touches given to him by the filmmakers, such as his interactions with Sam or his endearing use of emoticons (to, naturally, convey emotion) that start to make you wonder how much of the film is just as much about GERTY's self-awareness as it is about Sam's.
Driving the pace of the movie is the music, composed by the ever-impressive Clint Mansell, who has scored both Requiem For A Dream and The Fountain. The recurrent theme, "Welcome To Lunar Industries", has been used in ads here and there, but really should only exist for this piece of fiction. It's truly haunting, and stays you long after the final credits have stopped rolling. And it's there again - that simplicity, a sprinkling of a few, unsettling piano notes and a quietly epic drum track - that keeps encouraging you to just sit there and watch things unfold.
No crowd of rag-tag rebel scientists with explosive chemistry and maybe one token romance. No overblown score with a bloated and near-arthritic horn section. No choppy circa '92 MTV-style butcher-editing or indie-cred steadicam for faux-realism. No big names. No patronising narration. No designer spacewear. No buckets of blood or expensive CGI. No 3D glasses.
The simpler the components of a movie, the easier it can get its point across. Much like the atmosphere of space, it's very quiet, fairly slow-moving, and very unspoiled by superfluous background noise. It feels like we're watching a documentary, or video notes of a study of someone's awakening.
So after all of that, what is the point of this movie? Saying existentialism might be a bit too easy, but why can't that just be it? Through the various twists offered throughout the narrative, we can see pretty clearly that the world has changed; values have changed, and, much like Sam (or indeed, GERTY for that matter), there is no hope of us belonging unless we conform to the bigger truth. And therein lies the bleakness, of not only the movie's current reality, but also that sense of self-awareness, that criticism of existentialism, that maybe ignorance is bliss to avoid suffering.
Pretentious viewers can snub this idea, but if you're watching this movie more than once, you will see that, despite its simplicity, it's still a drip-feed. Nuances of performances, a line here and there, a facial expression, a mention of events before the movie, a joke...all of these begin to complete the picture of how you come to know Sam and GERTY to feel by the time the movie is over.
With a running time of just 97 minutes, the film feels oddly short for sci-fi. But this along with the pacing makes this movie that much more re-watchable. And the truth is, I'm still thinking.
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Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
Hey, I have an unrelated query ... How did you get to last more than a year without posting and not have your blog taken away from you and offered up as inactive ....?
Comment by The Film Geekette
The Film Geekette
I was wondering about that myself, actually...I know that over a year ago I emailed Orble's admin about getting my own domain but I didn't do anything about it. I wonder if that left me in some kind of limbo? Or maybe I just got lucky.
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile