I watch a lot of films, so I only really bother to write about those that I care about and Moon is certainly one of them.
I think I can safely say that this is my perfect kind of movie. Slow building, classy, ridiculously good plot, superb soundtrack and haunting visuals.
Moon follows the life of an offshore engineer coming to the end of his three year contract. His utterly solitary life is a depressingly bleak presence on a vacant planet and the feeling of overpowering dread and near suicidal emotion is strong throughout as the film is bathed in dark colours, is devoid of familiar sounds and offers no comfort to neither our protagonist nor the audience as we suffocate in the hopelessness and despair of loneliness.
However, he does have a number of things to comfort him, such as the long distance, pre-recorded video messages from his wife and child on earth, providing him with incentive to drone on until his imminent collection and release.
A near fatal accident prematurely reveals the existence of a process involving engineers and their return, but discussing further provokes risk of serious spoilers – and boy is that a spoiler.
I’m a huge fan of Solaris, both the original and the much criticised remake with Clooney. Moon has many parallels, from the incredibly intelligent soundtrack down to the slow pace of the movie – both provoke existential contemplation with references to mans life in relation to the ‘grander design’.
Moon is a future classic and rates as one of the best films of 2009, if not the past decade. It’s one of those awesome films that has story and dialogue strong enough to support a stage play even in the absence of CGI. Imagine Event Horizon and Solaris, somewhere in that group of space dramas sits Moon.
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