Some Drivel On...Moonrise Kingdom

Of Wes Anderson’s infinite visual motifs, perhaps his most prominent is the moving diorama, turning some locale, like the Belafonte boat at the heart of “The Life Aquatic”, into something akin to a dollhouse, moving his camera from left to right, or right to left, as he walks us through every facet of his finely honed vista. In the case of “Moonrise Kingdom”, he opens with two such moving dioramas. First, through the ramshackle home of Mr. and Mrs. Bishop (Bill Murray, Frances McDormand) located on fictional New Penzance Island, off the coast of New England, and then through the camp of the Khaki Scouts of North America, located on the same island, as Scoutmaster Ward (Edward Norton) moves from his tent to the outdoor mess hall, pausing for spot checks along the way. Each of these shots express, as they always do, Anderson’s preferred auteur-imposed order where he can show us exactly how things work in his invented worlds. Of course, look closer and you will see the encroaching sadness, whether it is Mr. and Mrs. Bishop reading the paper in different rooms right next to each other, or the lax safety standards of the Khaki Scouts, which hints at total control being just beyond Scoutmaster Ward’s reach.

What is also notable about this procession through camp is how it ends – that is, with Scoutmaster Ward discovering that 12 year Khaki Scout Sam Shutusky (Jared Gilman) has flown the coop. Sam flees, we learn, to meet up with the Bishops’ young daughter, Suzy (Kara Hayward), who we see in her own moving diorama scene where he mostly stares out the window, fitfully, through binoculars, as if yearning for what is beyond her immediate reach. They are running away, fleeing their respective natural orders where, as we have seen, not all is copacetic. That order, of course, will try to reel them back in, with the island policeman Captain Sharp (Bruce Willis) leading the chase, institutions bearing down. 

Sam and Suzy’s journey takes them to an isolated cove, where they hide out, talk and dance to old records. Whimsical might be a word that jumps to mind, but it’s notable for how Anderson repeatedly undercuts that whimsy, with Sam cruelly laughing at Suzy when she admits her parents think her troubled, only to apologize, and Sam bluntly correcting Suzy’s fanciful notions of what being an orphan is like. It’s not simply the institutions, in other words, that have driven them to leave, but the people in charge of them. But when Sam and Suzy are found, Mr. Bishop rips the tent off the top of them, he leaves them exposed, half-naked, to the world from which he, and Mrs. Bishop, were supposed to protect his daughter. Later, when lying in their conspicuously separate beds, Mrs. Bishop remarks of the two kids “We’re all they’ve got.” Mr. Bishop replies, infused with Murray’s patented droll darkness: “That’s not enough.” If they are not enough, who is?

There is another adult in “Moonrise Kingdom” – namely, The Narrator (Bob Balaban). As the movie opens, he stands before the camera to proffer a brief history of New Penzance as well as foreshadow the so-called Black Beacon Storm, “the region’s most destructive meteorological event of the second half of the twentieth century.” That this event will conclude the film, the Narrator, who briefly inserts himself into the movie halfway through, becomes something like a prophet in high water pants. And I do not employ the term “prophet” lightly. There is a Biblical undertone to “Moonrise Kingdom”, one that is slathered quite plainly across the surface but occurred to me more forcefully on a third watch, perhaps because it was Easter week when I re-watched.

Even without the presence of his prophet, Anderson foreshadows what’s to come with Sam and Suzy’s Meet Cute, taking place at a children’s production of Noye’s Fludde, a one-act Benjamin Britten opera recounting the story of Noah’s Ark. In that light, you might assume that Sam and Suzy’s escape is informed by some higher power. That is not the case, however, and while most movies might make their running away and eventual retrieval the basis for the whole movie, here the runaways are found and brought back into the fold midway through so as to keep the spotlight firmly on the entire social system supporting, or not, these kids. There is a great wave that appears near movie’ end, destroying a dam, approximating a flood at a Khaki Scout camp on a neighboring island, and while it leaves significant damage, it does not wipe everyone out. If anything, it gives them a chance to shine, like Scoutmaster Ward re-proving his worth by Khaki Scout Commander Pierce, and by Captain Sharp, agreeing it at a dramatic moment, to become Sam’s guardian.

If Wes Anderson films are often thought of as superficial, beholden to their finicky dollhouse aesthetic and little else, characters as props to pose in a movie dollhouse, in “Moonrise Kingdom”, the people, in being pointedly spared by the great flood, become the point. The great flood does not wipe the earth to leave a few to rebuild; it leaves who is there still there. The Gal or Guy upstairs is simply reminding everyone below that the well-being of this whole damn place is very much up to us.

Mixtape Movies Blogathon: Lovers on the Lam

Andy Hart of Fandango Groovers Movie Blog, the Grandmaster Supreme of the movie blogathon, has done it again, this time concocting a blogathon centered around movie mix tapes. He writes that our movie mix tapes should be "A selection of movies with no direct connection (star, director, source material) but that fit together or compliment each other. Around six movies, five plus one wildcard (a movie that doesn’t quite fit but still belongs)."

Well, thinking of mix tapes automatically makes one think of “High Fidelity” since John Cusack’s music obsessed protagonist Rob Gorden breaks down the proper means to craft one. Yet, in thinking of the mix tape my mind drifted to a different scene from “High Fidelity.” It’s when Rob and his music store geek buddies and their pal Louis are naming their “Top Five Side One Track Ones.” Rob, seemingly out of it and disinterested in the exercise, lists fairly standard, if not entirely accurate, fare such as “Let’s Get It On” & “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Jack Black’s ever-snobbish Barry, however, cannot abide. “Oh no, Rob,” he declares, “that’s not obvious enough. Not at all.” This is my way of saying, I’m going full snob, baby.

Lately I can't stop myself from having thoughts of just getting in a car and driving away. Where? Anywhere. And that led me directly to the notion of films featuring lovers on the lam. And in crafting a Lovers On The Lam Mix Tape I should include, say, “Badlands” and “Gun Crazy” and "True Romance" and especially “Bonnie and Clyde.” Of course, I should (for God’s sake, “Bonnie and Clyde” is one of my all-timers – its poster is on my home office wall), but I won’t.

And I won’t because when I craft mix tapes I’m that idiot who packs it full of obscurities and puts a Debbie Gibson song right after an Arcade Fire song ("Wake Up" / "Wake Up To Love" – bam!) and always, ALWAYS includes a Kylie Minogue track because every mix tape in the whole wide world should include a Kylie Minogue track. So......

Lovers on the Lam: A Cinema Romantico Mixtape 

Moonrise Kingdom. 

I mean, really, when you consider it, Sam & Suzy are just a much more whimsical "Badlands" Kit & Holly. No?

The Dish and the Spoon. 

I suppose that Rose & Boy (he never does get a name) are not "lovers", but they are definitely on the lam (she from her philandering husband, he from his native England) and there is without a doubt some sort of baffling, bizarre sexual undercurrent happening here that I'm still not sure I entirely understand (or want to). This is Track 2 to keep you on your toes.

One False Move. 

The lovers here are a ponytailed Billy Bob Thortnon (who co-wrote) & a where-did-she-go? Cynda Williams who light out of L.A. for the south after a string of murders who run right into a reckoning with a note perfect (yes, that's right, a note perfect) Bill Paxton as a small-town sheriff nicknamed "Hurricane" who really should be nicknamed "Tumbleweed."

Sleeper. 

It takes a little while, sure, but eventually Miles & Luna end up on the lam. And while they are less "lovers" then a Neurotic Who Can't Stop Obsessing Over Sex Because He Never Gets To Have It and a Woman Who Has Sex With Woody Allen At The End Because Woody Allen Is Writing The Screenplay, well, hey, we needed a more lively, easygoing track after those last two.

A Life Less Ordinary. 

The Kylie Minogue song of this movie mixtape. In other words, you're just gonna have to deal with it. I know not everyone holds a special place in their heart for the hapless Robert & the spoiled Celine but their whirlwind, celestially-stoked courtship that is more concerned with absurd set pieces and droll indulgence makes me want to giddily foxtrot. 

Jump Tomorrow. 

This is our wildcard because George & Girard are not really lovers on the lam. Well, they are lovers, but that's to say they are lovers in the manner of modern day, neurotic Don Quixotes. And they are on the lam, sort of, because Girard has just been rebuffed in his proposal to his lady and, thus, plans to commit suicide at Niagara Falls and because George is on his way to his (arranged) wedding at Niagara Falls from which he eventually flees for the wiles of the requisite Spanish vixen. It is far from a perfect movie but, damn, is it effervescent. And that's just how I want this mixtape to conclude - effervescently.

So it will.

Moonrise Kingdom

One of the phrases most utilized by adults when pre-teens complain about their lot in life is the following: You don’t know how good you have it. This phrase is both legitimate and idiotic. It is legitimate because too often adulthood devolves into the sort of weary drudgery and pre-occupation with occupation that seems to afflict the majority of adults on New Penzance, the mystical island off the coast of New England in a vibrant 1965 where Wes Anderson’s "Moonrise Kingdom" is set. These adults no longer seem to have it that good and probably haven’t for awhile. It is idiotic because, hey, adults seem to forget that when they were 12 year olds they too ceaselessly complained about their lot in life. It’s a right of passage.

This eternal conundrum is addressed in a wondrous scene in the camper home of Captain Sharp (Bruce Willis), the man tasked with tracking down runaway boy scout Sam (Jared Gilman), where he serves that same runaway boy scout half a sandwich and a brat. Sharp seems confused why this disobedient boy is in such a hurry to grow up. But then Sharp wonders if Sam might like a sip of his beer and in a whimsically symbolic moment Sam dumps his milk into an ash tray to make room for a few drops of the adult beverage. Adults want to protect children from the rigors of adulthood as long as they can, but there comes a point where resistance is futile.

Every Wes Anderson movie in one way or another is about the rivalry between make-believe and the real world and the opening shot of Moonrise Kingdom illuminates this in the way it focuses on a painting of a modest red home before the camera – in typical Wes-ish style – gracefully pans to the right and then the pans pick up the pace as we realize we are IN the very house represented in the painting. It belongs to the family of our heroine Suzy (Kara Hayward), the rebel with the blue eye shadow and propensity for stealing library books. She concerns her litigating parents Walt and Laura (Bill Murray and Frances McDormand) so much they have purchased a book titled Coping With A Very Troubled Child.

Suzy, as we see in flashback, has fallen head-over-heels (in her own stern way) with Sam, a no-nonsense romantic Khaki Scout who has tendered his “resignation” and fled the camp run with an innocent fist by golly willickers Scout Master Ward (Edward Norton). Ward summons Sharp – forever adorned in uniform complete with the requisite high water pants – who is mired in an affair with Laura which seems less about passion than the lack of alternatives on the tiny island. A search party is configured and give chase as Sam and Suzy, armed with a hunting rifle, binoculars and a record player, stay one step ahead, though their destination may be known to the Narrator (Bob Balaban) who turns up now and again to allude to the historic storm set to descend in a few days time and allow for a nifty backdrop to the third act climax.

As the film progresses, it takes neat detours in the story that never dull the momentum and it is revealed – to us and Scout Master Ward – that Sam is an orphan whose foster parents have given up on him. Dreaded Social Services (represented by Tilda Swinton) awaits. (There is a dog here named Snoopy and that reference elicits thoughts of Social Services as a Daisy Hill Puppy Farm For People.) And Suzy, we learn, has a serious mean streak, deeply troubling to the very parents who seem unaware of how their own fingerprints may have more than aided in creating that mean streak.

There is no love as forceful as young love, a truth Shakespeare knew best and which is why "Romeo and Juliet" will still be performed by the kids of the kids of the kids of your kids and mine. And yet so rarely is young love taken seriously by the old, as evidenced by the scene-stealing Jason Schwartzman as a crooked camp master who assists our star cross’d lovers of "Moonrise Kingdom" and agrees to marry them so long as they take a real pause to consider just what the union of marriage truly means.

Anderson casts the brief shot of this consideration with Sam and Suzy in the left of the frame and a young camp-goer bouncing on a trampoline in the right. At first, you think “Oh, there goes that quirky Wes again.” But upon reflection it’s the most loaded shot of a film loaded with loaded shots. Carefree innocence ceding to the taking of vows. Sam and Suzy know what it means.

And Sam and Suzy know just how good they have it. They don’t need a reminder. Which is why they just yearn for everyone to leave them alone so they can be together.