Sunday, July 01, 2012

Movie Lit: Moonrise Kingdom

Spoilers. Watch the movie and then comment.

The movie had themes of:
* the importance of connection
* competing authorities: the scouts (military), the police, social services ("the state"), and above all of them: the law. Parental and church authority put in an appearance too, although law and parental are conflated because the parents are lawyers.
* scale. Objects in the visuals often appear to be larger than they are until a person approaches them. The obstacles to connection feel larger than they are until they're confronted.

Some other themes:
* leadership - Scoutmaster Ward shows that people follow leadership; the nominal authority from a patch doesn't matter compared to actions under crisis.
* marriage - we enter it so early, when we feel the magic of that first strong connection. Later that decision makes no sense. Connection is essential; responsibility is not enough. No one connection is forever.
* expectations - considering Suzy a problem child makes her more of one. People don't like Sam because "no one else does."
* following - the scouts are all against Sam until the bad one is eliminated, and then they're all for him as soon as the next leader emerges in Sam's favor.

At first, all kinds of authority (church, parental, police, the state, scouts) conspire to keep Sam and Suzy apart. But when Sam and Suzy are ready to hurl their very lives against these obstacles, suddenly the authority figures are humans - they combine their authorities (police, the state, legal) and overcome the obstacles in the system.
This leads the protagonists to agree to live under authority (parental and police, respectively). because they are no longer denied the connection that is so important.

Sam and Suzy build a world together with their connection. When God (the narrator) and nature (the storm) conspire with earthly authorities to wipe out that world, they do not succeed. It lives on inside them. That momentary world is forever, that connection stretches sideways in time.

No comments: