Moonrise Kingdom
Moonrise Kingdom is a lovely movie, a coming of age film that describes a 12 year old boys fantasy of life as he experiences it.
There have been times, with much exasperation, I have felt the only group that listens to children with respect, and takes them seriously are psychoanalysts, and their abilities to help a larger society see the value and importance of that sometimes is/was not very successful. There are and have always been some parents who are respectful and serious, and some educators…fragmented groups here and there, but rarely the Hollywood film writers. Often I wondered if they had ever had a good 2 way conversation with a child.
Here is a fine movie that is respectful and serious about the fantasies of the early teen years, and the gift to us of this movie is a story of the dreams of a 12 year old boy, told not as fantasy, but as a real experience this boy lived, which lies much closer to the nature of our child fantasies…. so real, and yet it is a composition of perception. The movie is rich in symbolism, and detail and is actually a play within a play because of course, the boy himself is a piece of fiction, engaged in his own fiction.. The result is a charming satisfying movie carrying us back to the total dedication we had to the construct of our daydreams. It is told with seriousness and a total absence of a condescending view, and is a delight.
If you go, and really don’t like this movie although I can’t imagine that happening, you haven’t lost the price of admission nor will it be wasted time, because the music is as much a treat as the story. It is divine…Benjamin Britten, Leonard Bernstein & the New York Philharmonic, the English Opera Group Orchestra & singers in “Noye’s Fludde, Op.59: “Noye, Noye, Take Thou Thy Company” (this is Noah’s Ark story,,,,gorgeous), Francoise Hardy, “Le Temps de l’Amour”,Hank Williams singing American folk songs, Rubner&Manien, “An die Musik” Trevor Anthony Chorus of Animals, Choir of Downside School, Purley,Viola Tunnard, Benjamin Britten, “Songs from Friday Afternoons, Op.7:”old Abram Brown” and more.
A cartographer starts the movie telling us it is the summer of 1965, and this is the island of New Penzance.He gives the exact date, and reminds you (if you don’t know your history) that is just 5 days before the violent storm, a hurricane, that leveled the island(s), and was the worst storm ever recorded in this area of the world (somewhere in New England…vicinity of Rhode Island). He shows the island which has woods and foot trails, but no improved roads or vehicles…no shops or commercial areas….isolated, remote and breathtakingly beautiful. As the story progresses, he returns several times and the screen is again given over to huge maps….yellowed with a touch of fade all ready happening , and he guides us through the trails and islands where the story takes place.
There aren’t a lot of local inhabitants here…some..there is a police..lighthouse..living essentials. In a beautiful well kept picturesque lighthouse live a family of parents (both of whom are attorneys, and their family of 4 children. the oldest is a 12 year old girl, and there are 3 little brothers…the eldest maybe 7..and 2 younger.
As we are having our geography lesson of where we are (its really hard to accept all this as fictitious which it is), we fade into the lighthouse, which is built on 3 levels in which the family lives. It is perhaps 6 am and a little boy (4?) comes in a neat orderly room, opens a cupboard and removes a record player, opens an album, and puts on the record.
The recording is Leonard Bernstein & the New York Philharmonic, “The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, Op.34 A-F. A sweet voice is telling us about the symphony, how the various components, the strings, the brass, the woodwinds, are going to blend and make for us this ecstasy of sound..and as she talks, that is what happens, first a single component of the orchestra, and then another joins and another and so on and we are soon immersed in a symphony
I am deep in my delight of the memories when I first heard these recordings…i don’t know if they were Bernstein, but they were the same thing, and I could hardly keep from crying at the beauty of the harmony…this is going to be repeated in the movie..and more completely at the end of the film. I wonder if the hand held games,and video game machines have destroyed this for kids today. Do they still listen to these exquisite symphony lessons?
To me its all ready a good movie.
The other brothers appear. They remove a board game from the cupboard and sit on the floor playing.
The older sister comes out and goes out on the deck and looks through the binoculars at a meadow. In fact, we the audience, look through those binoculars too as we will do again, in many frames to come. We see a small figure in the abundant growth, but at the same time we see correspondence that occurred between supposedly that figure and the girl, Suzy. Now we are told that this is a year earlier and we are to learn about the boy and how they met.
There are summer scout camps on the island, and the boys from one such camp are roaming the island, checking it out when they come upon St.Jack’s Church where a performance is taking place. they sneak in and a few of the boys, one Sam Shakusky among them slip into a dressing room and see several girls dressed as birds applying makeup. Sam points to one, ” who are you?”, and a Wren..says she is a Wren….”No, no, you, who are you?”,and he points to a girl in a black Raven costume (for the Noah’s Ark production)This is Suzy Bishop (the older sister in the family we have met) and her bird is dark, mysterious,with a suggestion of aggression..and Raven can easily be seen as Rage…raging which she is.
Now we go back to 1965.
The islands are a perfect place for a rugged scout camp, and we are taken to such a camp. This is the Khaki Scouts of North America troop.It is early morning, and the trumpet blasts. the scoutmaster walks through the field, and acknowledges the boys…all about 12 years old, working on various activities to earn their badges….he is matter of fact, checking everything out…it is a tip top shipshape camp…not a leaf out of place. The boys gather for breakfast, and sitting with them, he starts his count. MyGod, one is missing. All jump up and the search is on for the missing scout. They come to Sams neat tent, and a cardboard held up on the side on the tent, when removed reveals a large hole that was cut. Scout Master Ward who maintains a perfect camp is undone. He is going to have a hard time finding this boy because he is the least liked boy in the troop, and the opinion of the others is to let him stay lost.
In our geography lessons with the cartographer we learned about an old Indian trail, no longer used.Suzy and Sam plan to run away together for about 10 days and follow this old trail. We are back looking through the binoculars, and the small figure is identified as Sam. Suzy runs away and meets him in the meadow. She is a tall girl, all ready developed into a young woman, and has a bearing and assurance that places her age several years older than Sam who looks still like a kid. He trys to look older by casually smoking a pipe.But they are both 12.
She arrives with a suitcase filled with 6 books which she will read to Sam in the evenings… a record player and a scissors which are indispensable to her, and her pet kitten and many cans of kitten food which is all her cat will eat.They are pleased with their escape, somewhat stiff, formal and very proper with each other, but very stimulated by their escape, being alone and the beauty of the world. They look out at the lake, and admire 2 ducks gliding effortlessly by. the poetic beauty of this moment is changed by the male duck aggressively mounting the female and with lots of squawking they mate. Sam and Suzy look at each other, and we are made aware of the sexual feelings that are starting to emerge.
The camp is in high gear conducting an intense search.Scoutmaster Ward has sent out troops with the camp dog to find them. He is not worried about Sam’s safety because this boy excels in all survivor and outdoor skills. He is a champion of resourcefulness in the forest. He is only upset that the perfect camp he conducts is ruined because a camper is lost. He phones Sam’s parents, and is told that Sam can no longer return there. He is not welcome.
Ward cannot understand this. He asks, aren’t you Sam’s father? No, the man bellows. Sam is an orphan. this is a foster home. We have had him a few months and he is too much trouble . He will have to find another foster home. He can’t come back here.Scoutmaster Ward is stunned. there was nothing on the record to indicate this, and if he had known he would have regarded Sam as a boy with special needs…not just an arrogant super intelligent problem kid.
As Suzy’s parents become aware of her absence and when they call the Sheriff whose name is Captain Sharp we get some insight into that home also. Both parents are attorneys. They live in the lighthouse quite distant from each other emotionally,and as physically far apart as the lighthouse allows. Both are angry and unhappy. Laura Bishop, the mother, is having an affair with Captain Sharp the sheriff, and her husband,Walt is a very depressed and unpleasant man.. he drinks..and is quite hostile. When Laura talks to her children,she orders and comments through a bull horn (supposedly because the house is on 3 levels and she won’t be heard using speaking voice…sometimes addressing her husband in this fashion too. They sleep in separate beds,and their nighttime conversation consists of stating very terse and briefly their courtroom or client legal issues. One night Walt morosely says that he wishes something would blow him up and end his life. When(if)that happened, no one would miss him, he whines. Laura attacks him….feeling sorry for yourself?…poor Walt..nobody cares and she sarcastically throws his narcissism back at him.
If you consider this film to be the fantasy of Sam, and that is how I saw it, it falls in place that the view of children about their parents is that of course their parents never have sex or love, but sleep in separate beds, and only talk business. It is also very convenient to have the mother set loose from her attachment to the father, and be accessible to the dreaming son…but just to show she is sexually desirable there is the suggested affair with the outsider (Captain Sharp). the mother whose voice is generally insisting on reason and discipline…is very annoying so her conversation appears to be orders given through a bullhorn. this is how it is seen by this son.Suzys parents are so immersed in their personal unhappiness that they are quite oblivious of her needs and she is an angry and lonely child.
So now we see we have two ignored, alienated, disturbed children who need each other, and in this search for communion and a partner/lover and the need to replace the distant parents with involved loving ones, we find a wish fulfillment in the dream.
Sam creatively finds good campgrounds on a higher level in the cliffs by hoisting the kitten and suitcase up by rope and the children climbing to a safe sanctuary…this is what happens, but it is also the symbolic coming to great heights in their discovery of each other. Sam catches fish to fry, Suzy reads to him and they fall asleep. We see that they have replaced what is missing in their lives. Sam has replaced the loss of his mother with Suzy Suzy has developed breasts and arriving with a kitten announces that she takes care of little dependent things, She is a mother, and as she reads to him the teenage life novels she brought , he is reminded that his first teachings on life came from his mother, and he wants that back.The scissors signify both the idea that the girl was cut, and she can be vicious, and the record player will bring sensual music to release their inhibitions so he can
abandon his formality and manners and enable him to have sex.
The next day many of the inhibitions are gone, and they strip and jump into the lagoon for a swim. When they are done and dressed in underwear (panties and bra for her,and undershorts for him, they put on the music and hold each other and start to dance. She tells him he may hold her breast, telling him they will grow bigger, and they decide to try the mysterious “French Kiss.” So they do. He makes earrings for her which are bugs on a hook. He pierces her ears which hurts, and she moans but he gets it done and puts in the bug earrings. This is quite a graphic picture of penetration, the imagined pain, (her ear actually bleeds) and she is left with children…little bugs. I think it was in Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf that the word bugger was used to describe the mythical child in that play…the word grabbed hold and became a rather coarse slang for children…or maybe it always was.Anyhow the fantasy that the bugs or pregnancy are the male gift to the woman for the seduction is rather sweetly told here in this fashion.
As this idyllic bliss continues on, we have many flashbacks to the hunting parties…the scout camp, and the parents with sheriff and others.Many things happen, and more and more we get to know the characters involved. A newcomer is a social service worker who is coming to get Sam as he is now homeless, and because he is violent, he will not be going to another foster home but to an institution where he will undoubtedly have electric shock treatment to curb his violence and irrational behavior. This social worker becomes the villain of the movie.
How is Sam violent? Well, at one point the competent boys from the camp find the escaped young lovers and a nasty fight breaks out. Suzy stabs a boy with her scissors and his side and hand is covered in blood. The dog is killed with an arrow. As Sam and Suzy sadly look down at the dogs corpse, Sam philosophically says the dog didn’t deserve to die. So they meet death,realize the unfairness of it, and accept it, so another rite of passage is acknowledged in this incident.
As the story gains in momentum, the narrator/cartographer continues on with his story of the land and the weather. this is told as if it happened in the past and we are reminded again that a violent storm is approaching.
Much as happened very fast…the children have been captured, and as Suzy’s mother comes into her bedroom and tries to tell her that she is forgiving and understands, Suzy looks at her and says over and over again, I hate you, I hate you.
The social worker is rapidly moving along her track to get Sam to the mainland to institutionalize him, but Captain Sharp is determined that this will not happen so he and some of the camp boys (who now have become admirers of heros) help another escape…it happens and there is more intense chase. the storm is approaching and is imminent. Now we have Suzy and Sam on top of a church steeple, and a crowd coming to catch them. Trees are all ready shaking, and the rain is coming down.Sam atop the steeple is struck by lightening and the church goes up in flames, but Sam, blackened, but otherwise unhurt escapes.Now the storm is really upon us, and it is a terrible one. Buildings float away, people,everything..the rain and the winds overcome all…it is devastating in its destruction..and then it is over. Sam has found refuge in Captain Sharps sheriff office. The sheriff offers him a beer, and tells him that he can live with him in his home so he has a new and better loving, compassionate parent. When the storm subsides, Sam has a new home, the social worker is not needed and the narrator is telling us of all the destruction, but, but he says in the harvest season that came later that year, the crops were fantastic….bountiful, and better than they had ever been, so the storm had brought good things too..a better economy, and a richer life.
The storm of course,is the coming adolescence of Sam and Suzy… they went through the destruction and upheaval as we all must in order to even begin to achieve a mature adult status. It is similar to the ubiquitous forest the hero must fight his way through in fairy tales, and it is the heroic angry storm within, that we must all survive….it is the story of all of us…and once again told in metaphors, and music and narrative…and one which we will never tire of seeing and hearing.And it is a huge box office success….with 4,5 or more stars from every reviewer.
If you are stimulated to find this paradise….it exists. The beautiful countryside was filmed at various places around Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island including Conanicut Island (Jamestown), Prudence Island, Fort Wetherill, Yawgoog Scout reservation, Trinity Church, Conanicut Island Light, Ocean House, Lincoln Woods State Park. Arcadia State Park
If you are interested to know a totally different view because it affects a lot of children, in spite of the enthusiastic applaud the movie has received, Moonrise Kingdom has been condemned for children by some groups for language,drugs,sex etc. I quote a portion of a conclusion to one of these negative views (from a long point by point attack on the film)
“We know as a society that infatuated tweens running off by themselves is an extraordinarily bad idea…We don’t live in a world free from an ugly word like pedophilia…..Moonrise Kingdom doesn’t just tell the story of two young runaways. it romanticizes them. it condones their actions. it suggests that puppy love between two 12 year olds is as worthy and weighty as any noble cause any sacred quest. And it suggests that adults who’d dare think differently are old stick in the muds who can and should be ignored and circumvented.
with that kind of message in mind, Moonrise Kingdom isn’t so much a sadly sweet fable as it is a parental nightmare–one where barely pubescent children run away together, fumbling with each others bodies as any and all adult voices of reason are drowned out by the coming storm”.
Selma Duckler