“The Last Place You’d Ever Expect to Find Yourself”
Despite being a low-budget feature film of a debuting independent filmmaker, it definitely had an unforeseen promotion by the recent lunar discovery of water. The film was much awaited by all those science-fiction (SF) fans who were craving for an atmosphere that movie-making gurus in Hollywood tended to ignore.
Moon lives up to the expectations you set up after watching the official trailer. The film is a success both in terms of the atmosphere and the plot. The atmosphere almost immediately, though subtly, transports you back to the greatest “classical” SF films made in the age of the 1960’s to the 80’s. It is all carefully executed by the recurring SF themes of space travel, exploration, solitude, a fear of the unknown, and insights into human psycho-physiology. Added to these, the creators of Moon re-applied some earlier cinematographic techniques that had been made redundant by the advance of CGI. The result may seem and sound ambivalent at first, but it is altogether a poignant story that will catch the attention of a hard-core SF fan and an average film-buff at the same time.
Moving further to the dark side, being one of those nostalgic SF fans, we cannot hesitate to have a closer look at the peculiar effort of the director Duncan Jones. He customized the script to fit the protagonist who in turn rewarded us with a dazzling performance on screen. There are no over-indulgent dialogues or artificial action sequences that would measure up to today’s filthy standards. But, on a deeper level, SF fans will clearly notice that there are no questions asked about the macrocosm (“the world outside”), apart from those ones that originate in the sentimental microcosm (“the world inside”) of Sam, the main character. The tagline of the movie is well-placed, but the plot is too simplistic to reach the depths of such classics as, for instance, Silent Running, from which the film unmistakably gained references.
The official trailer is one of the rare gems that is well-edited and does not contain distressing spoilers.
Moon, 2009, directed by Duncan Jones, starring Sam Rockwell www.moon-movie.com
