A Three Chapter Masterpiece That Captures The Idea of “Being Yourself”
So, last week’s cinema viewings have consisted of mostly A24 films; The Lighthouse, Midsommar, and Moonlight, which were all masterpieces in their respective genre(s). Moonlight was a special film, even though it may not be my favorite film I watched that week, because of how it accurately played on the stereotypes of African Americans and it exemplified the simple concept of “being yourself”. The use of three chapters made the film whole because this signaled, to the audience, that Chiron was going through a change, whether it be a literal change or by characteristic/mental change.
Chapter 1: Little
When we meet Chiron is a young child who is running from bullies. When Chiron meets Juan, a drug dealer who caught Chiron running into an abandoned building, in order to escape the bullies, he is silent, as always, because that’s how he normally interacts with others. Juan brings Chiron, who is still mute, to his house, where he and his girlfriend Teresa, live. Teresa offers the young boy some comfort because she heard about his altercation with the bullies. Chiron remains silent, until the next day when he finally decides to tell Juan and Teresa where he lives, so that he can be brought back to his mother. After a confrontation with Paula, Chiron’s mother, Juan decides to step up and be the role model for Chiron because he realized that Chiron is in the same situation he was in when he was a child. Chiron is the common victim of bullying because he is the silent kid. He prefers to interact on an uncommon basis and is usually viewed as “the outsider” to the rest of the children in his age group. To offer comfort to Chiron, Kevin, a kid in the same group of kids, reaches out to him and attempts to toughen him up, so that the bullying could end. This is the first time that someone wanted to be friendly to Chiron, other than Juan, rather than inflicting upon the constant punishment from his day-to-day life. Chiron’s father isn’t in the picture, so he is missing out on a fatherly figure or role model and also wasn’t taught to certain masculine characteristics and/or actions. Juan lives a double life and chooses not to tell Chiron because he doesn’t want Chiron to think less of him and doesn’t intend to influence Chiron to get involved with that lifestyle. After another altercation with his mother, Chiron heads to the house of Juan and Teresa, where he barely communicates with Juan and/or Teresa that much, until Juan takes Chiron to the beach. Juan tells Little, Juan’s nickname for Chiron, “At some point you gotta decide for yourself who you gon’ be”, which is the essential quote to this masterpiece of a film. After beautiful visuals of Juan teaching him how to swim in the ocean, Little feels like he’s found his role model, regardless of how adamant his mother feels about him not being around Juan. Little’s feelings about Juan change after his mother, who is drugged up, tells him about her drug addiction and that she gets the drugs from Juan. This leads to Little feeling empty of a role model and mentor. This moment is strong because this is when he truly feels alone; missing a mentor/role model to him, and deprived of a person, who is there to support him and love him. After Little hears the truth from Juan and confirms what his mother had told him, the film cuts and goes into chapter two.
Chapter 2: Chiron
The film cuts to chapter two, where Little is no longer than Little kid and also outgrew that nickname. Chiron is older, but he still is the victim of bullying. Kevin, now older, finds Chiron and depicts his sexual experience that landed him in detention. In that moment, it is made clear that Kevin, though they barely interact, is one of the only people that love Little for who he truly is. Now overcome by her drug addiction, Paula tells Little to go somewhere for the evening because she’s inviting “ some friends” over. In the next scene, Little goes to Teresa’s house, where we learn that Juan is dead. As Chiron sleeps through the night, he has a “wet dream” thinking about the sexual experience that Kevin had described to him. After another day of getting bullied at school and his mother harassing him for money to supply her drug problem, Chironwants to escape to the place where Juan made him feel comfortable; the beach. Upon relaxing and watching the waves constantly crash, Kevin is also there and decides to join Little. Kevin has a blunt with him and lights it up and starts a deep conversation. The main character releases his true emotion, “I cry so much sometimes I turn to drops.” In an attempt to comfort Little, Kevin sparks a romantic moment between the two where Kevin performed sexual activities to him and caused a “finish”. The two leave the beach in awkwardness because this was the first time that Chiron had a sexual encounter and, for Kevin, this was his first sexual encounter with another man. The next day, the bullies want to bully Chiron more than usual, so they bring back a game where someone just punches a person of the bullies’ choosing, which is obviously Chiron. Kevin is a master at this game and apparently played it all the time in middle school, so the bullies’ choose him as “the inflictor”. They force the hesitant Kevin to punch Little, who isn’t afraid to take a punch, since he is used to it occurring. It takes three punches for school administrators to break up what was going on. With the damage on his face, Chiron refuses to file charges against them because he knows that it won’t have any affect on how he’s bullied. He instead waits for the next day in his biology class to strike against the head bully, Terrel. Chiron, with a full head of steam, power walks into the classroom and grabs his chair and smashes it on the back of Terrel. The rest of the bullies’ pull him off as he screams “get the f*** off me, n*****”, and soon after, gets arrested, while staring at his “friend” Kevin. This act of violence foreshadows the shift in Chiron’s character between chapter two and three. It then cuts and we head to chapter three.
Chapter 3: Black
This is the chapter that reflects the stereotypes that are placed on African Americans and encapsulates the themes of the film. As chapter three starts, we see an African American male who looks nothing like the skinny Chiron we see in the first two chapters, who is now known as Black. We now see this muscular individual who was awoken by the trauma that his mother put him through as a child. Black is now what his role model Juan was: a drug dealer, in Atlanta. That quiet kid was no more. While he sleeps, he routinely gets calls from his mother, which he ignores. He receives a call, assuming its mother, but it was actually Kevin. The two recollect over old memories and some catching up for a few minutes, as they haven’t seen each other since the staredown while Chiron was getting arrested. Kevin attempts to apologize for what had happened that day, but receives nothing but silence from him. The call ends and Black goes back to sleep, but he has a “wet dream” about seeing Kevin. Black goes to finally see his mother. She wants to apologize to him, but Black isn’t having any of it because he views that as the foundation of his persona. Black eventually cries and accepts her apology. Black leaves from the visit to go visit Kevin. When he sees Kevin, he recognizes him immediately because he remembered from his “wet dream” last night. At first glance, Kevin didn’t recognize him because of his new physical physique. Kevin greets him and offers to cook him the “chef’s special”, which isn’t on the menu. When Kevin delivers the food to Black, the two sit in a booth and finish their phone call from the night before. As he eats his food, he lets Kevin know that he is in the business of drug dealing. This uproars Kevin because he felt like this wasn’t the same kid from that beach in Miami, he sees the person in front of him as this illusion of one of his childhood friends. This is true because Black wasn’t being himself and wasn’t the same kid from that night on the beach. Black was becoming what his “role model” Juan was. In the process, Black distanced himself from being Chiron or Little, he wanted to feel socially accepted, so he made sure that when he moved to Atlanta, he left his true self in Miami.
The two are awkward again, similarly to the time after the interaction at the beach, but this time it was built up sexual tension. Wanting to get the right response from Kevin, Black repeatedly asks him why he really called him. Kevin plays “Hello Stranger” by Barbara Lewis and says that when he heard that song while he was working, it reminded him of Black. This is the moment when the two stare at each other and the sexual tension reaches its peak. After hearing the song, the restaurant closes and Black takes Kevin home. On the ride home, Kevin offers Black a place to stay for the evening, so that he doesn’t have to drive all the way back to Atlanta, at such a late time in the night. Once they arrive at Kevin’s house, Black reveals his true self to Kevin, rather than continuing the facade he’s been putting on. This is when Black is not the character on the screen, we are watching Chiron. Hestates that Kevin is the only person to ever touch him, “You the only man that’s ever touched me. You’re the only one. I haven’t really touched anyone, since.” At this moment, we see the final change in main character; the one where he is able to admit his true feelings for the person he loves and stops denying the signs of him being a gay man. This is the moment that made me tear up because all of those situations where Chiron was struggling, Kevin was always there, no matter what. He was the only person that truly made Chiron feel like he could be his actual self and show his true emotions to. The film closes out with Chiron resting on the shoulders of Kevin, while they just sit in stare. They’ve reached their equilibrium. They no longer have to fear the bullies, they no longer are those young kids who are looking for acceptance from a group or a mass population who reject them for their indifferences. At this stage, they found the acceptance they both needed, in each other. Chiron was able to finally choose who he wanted to be, just as Juan had said, and stopped allowing the influence of others to make his decisions for him.
My Conclusion
This film talks about the aspects of certain lives that never really get talked about and I feel that’s what makes this film strong. They were able to take the stereotypes that surround African Americans and used them to build the foundation of a character who denies the characteristics of his true self. I’ve rarely watched a film and been entirely happy with what I watched. With this film, I had no critiques because I feel that every aspect of the film was necessary to have that “fairytale ending”, where Chiron and Kevin are finally at peace with who they are and each other. This is definitely one of the strongest films I’ve ever watched and one of the best introspective films I’ve ever watched.
If you haven’t checked it out, check it out because you won’t be disappointed!
-IZ
