What are we to make of a film that can’t be truly appreciated for what it is until one has the opportunity to view it multiple times, and perhaps even engage with the remote control to pause and zoom and pour over the attention to detail that whizzes by too quickly to take it in during the course of one sit-down with it? I saw Moonrise Kingdom for the second time on Saturday night, and my relationship with it improved tremendously over my first viewing, but it’s raised an bit of a question in my mind regarding the value of a film that demands to be seen over and over before it can truly be appreciated. But I’m ultimately going to try to work my way through my thoughts about the film aimlessly and without any particular thesis, and completely get away from the larger question that I just raised. Sorry about that.mfunk9786 wrote:I still feel like I didn't really see Moonrise Kingdom. Don't get me wrong - it was sweet, charming, brimming with childhood nostalgia - but it didn't feel very much like it took place on planet Earth. Fantastic Mr. Fox was an animated film, which is very well suited to this kind of frenetic pace, but I reached the end of Moonrise Kingdom, which is pretty much the same length, feeling like I didn't know any of these characters as well as I wanted to. Pulling off Wes Anderson's style of dollhouse filmmaking feels like less of an achievement when he sees fit to completely rid himself of the shackles of conveying realism or the rhythms of real life. Whereas Rushmore's characters (it is ultimately this film's spiritual cousin) and world believably lived and breathed before and after the film's runtime, Moonrise Kingdom is only a real place during the time we're watching this movie, and that makes a big difference to me. Is it a very good film? Yes, absolutely - the attention to detail and craft here is baffling. But is it one that I found easy to warm up to upon my first viewing? No - I often found myself a bit exhausted trying to keep up with the million little things we're ideally supposed to pick up on as Moonrise Kingdom rolled along like a speed train - but I can absolutely see where this will be a grower. Hopefully repeat viewings can make me feel as if I know these people (particularly the adults) more intimately than I did after one go-around, because I do really wish I could have gotten to know them better before Moonrise Kingdom closed, tore down its sets, and went back into a trunk in Anderson's closet.
My first time through Moonrise Kingdom, I found it difficult to absorb everything being thrown at me by Anderson – there are cutaways that are incredibly brief, swatches of dialogue that are supposed to impart knowledge about the histories and relationships between characters that can be missed in the middle of a laugh, or in the middle of a particularly spellbinding visual composition. Anderson has always been a marvelous visual stylist, throwing a lot of tiny details into his films to reward those who are willing to look for them, but he’s never built up such a head of steam before. The rhythm of the film is part of its charm, but it demands more from the viewer than an average film because it rarely lets our minds stop ticking along with each of the Anderson's cues.
There are some things here that don't work as well as perhaps they should. While he gives a largely admirable performance, Jared Gilman is occasionally rather tongue-tied by Anderson and Roman Coppola’s dialogue, but the film, if it’s to be seen in the form of a living, breathing entity, does not stop to let him try to speak a bit slower. There are also plotlines and characters that aren’t given their due – one wonders what Harvey Keitel saw in his part on the page that made it worth getting out of bed – his appearances onscreen are slight and rather unnecessary. Sure, there’s a purpose for the hootenanny that brings all the local scouts together in one place, but giving us a smidge of another character who is simply not as fleshed out as the other adults during a time that the film is zooming along at full speed seems foolhardy to me. The composition of the film finds something charming to do with even the least circumstantial of characters – Tilda Swinton’s, Bob Balaban’s, Jason Schwartzman’s – but Keitel’s presence still puzzles me.
Complaints about the film’s minor flaws aside, it’s an amazingly original work – sure, it draws inspiration pretty heavily at times from films like Pierrot le fou and Zazie dans le metro, among others (I love the visual reference to Eyes Wide Shut late in the film) but I don’t know that I’ve ever been able to engage with such a self-conscious piece of work the way I did with this one – and despite cues taken from other films here, they go together to make a genuinely innovative film that couldn’t be replicated (and I can only imagine that a few faux-indies over the next few years will try). Kara Hayward’s performance strikes me as the birth of a new talent; and the two actors who I had a bit of trepidation about entering the Wes Anderson dollhouse, Edward Norton and Bruce Willis, deliver the best performances in the entire film. And while Moonrise Kingdom has such an impressive cast, the performances are dwarfed by some truly implausible filmmaking feats on display – the opening sequence, some excellent continuity during long journeys and long conversations (a conversation between Willis and Gilman at Willis’ kitchen table is a standout comedic moment), a very creative montage of communication between Gilman and Hayward over their year-long courtship – there is some truly inspired work on display here. While I’m not one to agree with complaints of Anderson’s work being cold (I find his films more emotional [and I get more emotional during them] than most), no one will be able to make the claim that Moonrise Kingdom keeps the viewer at a distance or doesn’t convince us that we should be charmed (or emotionally sledgehammered, depending) by the story of these two unusual children and the little community they inhabit.
I love the film, but I couldn’t truly love it until I’d gotten another crack at it, and I imagine my appreciation will continue to build each time I see it. I heartily recommend that anyone on this forum who’s on the fence (or has just decided to be an Anderson detractor through and through) should see Moonrise Kingdom… twice… before they decide whether it was worth their time.
