Moonlight (2017).
Returning to the first beach where you saw the ocean is a moment. Meeting your first love after you’d both grown up and moved away is a moment. Having a tough conversation with a parent who could have done better is a moment. And all of them are reconciliation. When you somehow make peace with all the sordid pieces of your past, that is a love story.
In Moonlight, first comes love. The kind of love a mother hen gives her newly hatched chicks is what Chiron experiences with his savior, Juan. This love cannot happen quickly; any time it shifts too fast, it threatens to scare the precious child away. This chapter begins with a home, warm food, and a bed to sleep in. This foundation sets the tone for every other love Chiron comes into contact with. Juan’s love was founded in reconciliation; to know one another without names, to care for one another without first running an audit of whether it’s worth it or not. So many considerations can stand in the way of love, even the love we want to give ourselves in the form of self-acceptance. Society waxes poetic about our capacity to love and to be loved and then adds clauses to the statement that commodify love instead.
Chiron’s mom peruses him like a pocket. Paula reaches into his soul for warmth. Her love is a demand. Chiron’s existence is the debt she constantly demands restitution for. Their dynamic is a painful one to watch. To hear a child confess hatred for their parent is an uneasy revelation to hold. Most people would feel a rush of obligation to caution against such utterances. But, to the listening ear, the deeper truth reveals itself: Paula doesn’t love her son either. Most of everything she says to him and the things she says about him at her lowest points reveal the resentment of a mother who wishes life was kinder. As her baby boy grows into a tall, quiet teen, Paula resents the way he seeks refuge in Juan’s partner, Teresa. Paula taunts Chiron, reminding him bitterly that she alone is his mother, commanding he never forget that fact.
For the teenaged Chiron, love is a bitter experience of awe. What other emotion could describe the shocking pain of a lover striking your face? What word could describe such a betrayal, apart from one reserved for acts of God? As Chiron unravels the meaning of the hurt roiling from his heart to his belly, his rage bubbles up over the lip. His home is a thorny nest; his lover is unfaithful, throwing in his lot with his enemies. This is death. This is the world and its ways. This is necessary ruin as the climax of chaos. This is the crossroads where Chiron begins the journey back to himself and Love.
Chiron’s love story concludes with reconciliation. Grown and independent, the boy known as Chiron has become the man, Black. In Black, witness the hurt of the past, the transformation of the present, and the hope for a kinder future. Black has the look of a man that’s promised himself never to get played for a fool ever again. He describes his work when he says he’s built himself back hard. Visiting his mother is an aching exercise. The air between them vibrates with the unease, with apologies unspoken. Until they finally are. And even then, the sweet relief is uneasy, as easily frazzled as the boy Little if someone shifted a little too swiftly for his liking. It’s a relief you want to sit in and soak in until your mind accepts the significance of what’s taken place.
Meeting Kevin for the second time is the first time for Black. Little didn’t remember when they met and Chiron couldn’t forget the last time he’d seen Kevin, but Black only knew Kevin as a relic of the past, as a distant, deconstructed memory. When he finally sits with him at a table, they share a meal. Throughout history, sitting down to a meal together has been the mark of intimate friends, the establishment of a milestone that indicates a desire to be around for a good, long time. As they sup, Black remembers himself, putting the pieces back together about who he is, who he was, and where he began. His current self is merged with those in his past and he remembers: Love.
[Remembering Love, IDAHOBIT ‘22]
English