"what kind of bird are YOU?" - my favorite film of the year so far

Rating: 10/10 (16 December 2012)

I just completed my top 12 of the year for an online magazine I recently began collaborating with, and MOONRISE KINGDOM was my number 1. It's definitely THE film of the year so far, but I have yet to see some stuff with real potential; I'm talking of two films in specific: Tarantino's DJANGO UNCHAINED and Anderson's THE MASTER.
Anyway, Wes Anderson's comeback from animation is his best since, well, that previous animated work FANTASTIC MR. FOX (2009). This means that it's yet another marvelous addition to his growing filmography – 7 feature films and right now each one of them could be a real treat for newcomers. Hell, the opening sequence of "Moonrise", with the camera moving and showing each room of a house, can represent the essence of his filmmaking.
"Moonrise" certainly shares things with Anderson's past films; I actually had to revisit (for the first time ever) THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU after watching it. Had to since here we have some special effects, in pure Anderson fashion, that reminded me of "Life Aquatic". I'll use Owen Wilson's words on "Life Aquatic" to really begin this commentary:
"It's an artificial world with real people"
"Moonrise" shares more with "Life Aquatic" than with the rest of films from Anderson. Here too we have an artificial world with real, soulful characters. Anderson created a whole world for that 2004 film: islands, movies (and its posters) and even fish species. Here he created islands too, a whole map for his universe and even books (hell, the omnipresent narrator, played by Bob Balaban, looks like a Team Zissou member!).
Imagine a kid who's told to draw a police station and simply draws a building, writes the words "police station" and uses an arrow to point from the words to the drawing. This is the cinematic sort-of representation of that, if that makes sense. It has elements of an "amazing, absurdist comedy" (to quote Guillermo del Toro, who called the BATMAN TV series from the sixties that), and the setting is definitely perfect for that.
The main characters of MOONRISE KINGDOM are a couple of kids in love. Troubled souls unite, as that Pearl Jam song says, actually - it's a "two against the world" sort-of thing where you care for the characters. The boy, Sam Shakusky (Jared Gilman) is arguably a classic Wes Anderson character – he's a little, and extremely clever, outcast.
But there's a reason why he looks, at least for me, like a twelve-year-old Johnny Depp: he's a badass who's not afraid of girls, and who can deal with the bullies and single-handed make scouting a cool and impressive thing to do – I mean, in one of the best musical moments of the film we have Shakusky canoeing with the Hank Williams tune "Kaw-Liga" as background music! This boy falls for a girl (played by Kara Hayward) who is, as well, a quintessential Anderson character – think in a teenage version of Margot Tenenbaum, who can't call *home* what he shares with her own family.
What we have with the rest of the cast is what I would call absurdist gold. How absurd is that you hire two of the biggest Hollywood stars and make them play an incompetent island police and a Boy Scout leader? Here Bruce Willis is a cartoonish policeman and Edward Norton is the Boy Scout leader – it sounds funny, I know, and yes, it is to see, for instance, Norton being totally incapable of take care of his troop.
And at the same time, this is probably Norton's best, deepest and most human role in years. The same goes for Willis – he has recently done stuff like COP OUT (Kevin Smith, 2010), and I believe none of his recent roles is as great as this one. "Moonrise", by the way, marks the first time since PULP FICTION that Willis and Harvey Keitel share a film – Keitel has a minor role here and, surprise surprise, Anderson made him use Boy Scout clothes!
I think two performers are here only to satisfy the Anderson fan. I actually watched this first at a press screening in Universal Pictures Mexico and later at a regular screening – not many people, I noticed, responded to Bill Murray's now typical attitude. But I loved every single second of Murray here – and I'm sure any Anderson fan will enjoy this sort-of reprise of his RUSHMORE part. And Jason Schwartzman, boy is he hilarious! So, and as any Wes Anderson, this won't turn everybody on; it gets crazy, absurd and fun, and at the same beautiful. Loved it!
*Watched it on 07 and 12 November, 2012