for TRIBUNE this week : Duncan Jones’s MOON [7/10]

Published on: July 15th, 2009

Moon
Director: Duncan Jones

Given the current media hoop-la over the 40th anniversary of the Apollo landings, you'd think there could be no better time for thoughtful, stimulating science-fiction tale Moon to arrive on our screens. Except that it'll surely be crowded out of all but the most adventurous multiplexes by those fantasy-genre behemoths Transformers 2 and Harry Potter 6. The former cost a reported $200m, with a marketing kitty to match; Moon was shot in 33 days for a paltry $5m.
   Then again, these things are relative: Moon, entirely UK-funded, cost ten times as much as Shane Meadows' wonderful Somers Town, which it followed into the record-books by taking the Michael Powell Award (for best new British feature) at last month's Edinburgh Film Festival. Moon, however, is decidedly more ambitious – transcending financial limitations to look rather better than many examples of digital-reliant Hollywood product.
   And while the focus is mainly on character, there's no shortage of incident or sly narrative development in Nathan Parker's script (story by director Jones.) It'd be unfair to reveal too much here. Suffice to say that we're on the dark side of the moon  in the not-so-distant future. A new form of energy is being harvested here, one sufficient for all mankind's needs. In charge of the vast, automated operation is a sole human: Sam Bell (Rockwell), who's two weeks from completing his three-year shift and impatiently longs to see his family on Earth. But complications ensue…
   In normal circumstances, to note that a film resembles a blown-up TV programme would be a criticism. But to say that the story told by Moon could easily have been a classic episode of The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits is very much the opposite. Indeed, so ingenious is the double-twist format, so thought-provoking the existential subtexts. that top-drawer 20th century science-fiction authors like Philip K Dick and Stanislaw Lem would surely approve and applaud.
   The 1972 Andrei Tarkovsky adaptation of Lem's Solaris is duly referenced at several points – as with Kris Kelvin in the "original", the lonely "astronaut" Bell receives an unexpected "visitor" whose presence hints at a dark, disturbing secret. Genre-fans will also enjoy the hommages to cinematic forerunners like Silent Running, Outland, Alien and Dark Star. It's to Moon's credit, however, that the film, despite a slightly rushed climax (which leaves several loose ends a-dangle) is much more than merely the sum of its antecedents – partly thanks to the terrific, poignant work by Rockwell, a somewhat spiky actor who gets to display impressive range (ably supported by an unseen Kevin Spacey, channelling Douglas Rain as the voice of the moon-base's computer system.)
   Rockwell has been an indie-cinema fixture for some time, of course – whereas Jones and Parker are relative newcomers whose ambition and skill augur well for their future projects. If space-oddity Moon is any guide, with Jones the apple clearly hasn't fallen too far from the creative tree. He is, after all, the son of Mary-Angela Bowie Barnett (a.k.a. Angie Bowie) – whose grandmother, like Lem, came from Poland – and whose 1977 poem Time features the lines "Times pass methodically / Tick-tocking hours of our lives / Multiply the product of Earth men / And our energy survives." In addition, her 2002 solo album was entitled Moon Goddess, while Lou Reed credits her with creating his early-seventies 'Transformer' look. Which is, sort of, where we came in…

Neil Young
7th July, 2009
written for the 15th July edition of Tribune magazine



MOON : [7/10] : UK 2009 : Duncan JONES : 97m (BBFC) : seen at Cameo cinema, Edinburgh, 18th June 2009 (Edinburgh Int'l Film Festival) – press show.
Original review.