Movie : Moonrise Kingdom

I watched another movie by Wes Anderson, The Moonrise Kingdom (2012) last week. The movie was written by Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola, remember my post on the Coppola's family ? Or read my previous post on the Darjeeling Limited. Well, this time the main characters were lead by two kids : Jared Gilman & Kara Hayward, both were pretty new in the film industry. 

It's an innocent love story of young children, in romantic-comedy genre, you can read the synopsis here.

What I loved about the movie? :

Read more if you watched the movie and wanted to know what I think about it :

1. Structured and organized.

The movie was heavily structured and everything was lined orderly, it was almost fake, but knowing it was just a story and it's "Wes's style", I accepted everything so easily - I love how structured everything was ! It seemed to me like Wes took an extra effort to put things orderly before taking any shots, and he loved to make it look all organized. It felt like reading a children book, where everything was in order and possible.

It was like, he would say ; " Okay, put these little items her, here, here and here. Make it all look orderly and then take the shots ". I noticed this because I know I am very particular about how things should be seen or maybe how I like things to be seen :D

*

2. Characters and items.

I was mostly inspired by the items Wes portrayed in each characters, so I doodled things that I captured while I was watching the movie. The theme were vintage ! :D

Suzy brought her kitten, her brother's record player, her books with magical stories in it, her plaid bag, a suitcase and her binocular to see far things. Sam brought his scout explorer things mainly a map, compass and his whole camping equipments. Other : The Master Scout clung to his recorder every night, one of the scout with his motorcycle, Lional and his record player, etc.  

It was almost like in the Darjeeling Limited where every character clung to their specific items ! 

*

3. Mixture of childishness and maturity.

They were both children but they spoke like adults. They looked innocent, sometimes rather cute, but their actual behavior weren't normal for kids. Like claiming they were both in love and just wanted to be together, and asking what is so wrong with that ? Or wrote letters to each other and planned to elope and how Sam smokes in the film the whole time :F 

*

4. Short sentences. 

I love how they talked in short sentences, very emotionless and dry :

Sam :
   Why do you always use binoculars?
Suzy :
   It helps me see things closer.
   Even if they are not very far away.
   I pretend it's my magic power.
Sam :
   That sounds like poetry.
   Poems don't always have to rhyme, you know.
   They're just supposed to be creative.

*

5. Camera Shots.

I'm not sure about the terms, but it was all, beautiful ! Mostly on front shots, you can see it when the movie has just started, and it showed the whole house on the set. Wes also loves to take shots with so many characters looking at the camera at once. Here :

*

6. The Narrator.

Even the narrator was well-acted, in his cute green snowcap and bright red jacket. He went from a place to other places explaining the stories and histories of the island. I love stories with a narrator ! Plus the boy's voice from the record player played by Suzy's brother in the film and also at the ending credit scene explaining about the orchestra that was being played. How detailed can a person be?

*

7. Adults and kids.

I love how strong the kids were, from Suzy and Sam to all the boy scouts. How very determined they were in making decisions and coping up with the situations. While the adults were all weak and emotionally imbalance eg : Suzy's parent, the police officer and such. You see how Wes twisted the story? The kids were showing how possible everything can be in reaching out their dream, even how irrational it might seemed like. Maybe we adults forget that when we become older, we've put limitations on many things, we are blinded by our own expectations. 

Summary :

I loved the Moonrise Kingdom, the message it brought, the theme, shots and colors, and how child-like it can possibly be. I've watched it twice so far, and I'm ready for another two of previous Wes Anderson movies soon.