Inclubabu Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

SoTrumpBelieve Must See Movie...

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

filippaberry84 I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

wes-connors As battle sounds boom in the distance, moody blonde teenager Cathryn Harrison (as Lily) accidentally hits and kills an animal while speeding on a lonely country road. Avoiding capture by men – inexplicably at war with women – she drives off to an estate filled with various animals. What she sees first are mostly sheep and naked young children. Three adults are also present. Babbling and bedridden Therese Giehse (in her final film, as "Old Lady") lives upstairs. Her closest animal companion is a very large rat. A young man and woman, both looking like fashion models, are more mobile; they are Joe Dallesandro (as "Brother Lily") and Alexandra Stewart (as "Sister Lily"). Strangest of the animals is a talking unicorn, who is well-read enough to quote Shakespeare. You might consider this an apocalyptic version of Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"..."Why did Lily throw clocks out the window?" Well, to see time fly, of course...Writer-director Louis Malle is behind "Black Moon". Possibly, the title refers to a moonless phase as there is little moon or sunlight in the film. The most artistic quality of this "art film" is the lovely cinematography, by Sven Nykvist. Other than that, there isn't much beyond whatever is going on in Mr. Malle's mind. One interpretation is as good as any, so here's mine. In her sexual "coming of age" years, young Ms. Harrison (daughter of Noel Harrison and granddaughter of Rex Harrison) is provided with large glasses of milk. Consider, also, the old woman likes breast-feeding (on Ms. Stewart's breasts). Watch as Malle directs Harrison to progressively unbutton her shirt as she begins to act more "motherly" to Ms. Giehse. You wonder if Harrison will eventually offer her nubile breasts to the old woman. Stay tuned for the answer to this question and a surprise bonus...*** Black Moon (9/24/75) Louis Malle ~ Cathryn Harrison, Therese Giehse, Joe Dallesandro, Alexandra Stewart

MARIO GAUCI I had missed out on this on French TV a few years ago – the film is so obscure that I had never even heard of it back then!; eventually, I caught up with it while in Hollywood on bootleg DVD-R in an English-dubbed version (as was this current edition, albeit a slightly out-of-synch one!).Best described as a plot less apocalyptic surreal fantasy on "Alice In Wonderland" lines, it actually precedes Claude Chabrol's own superior modernized take on the children's classic (ALICE, OR THE LAST ESCAPADE [1977]). For the record, writer-director Malle had previously only breached fancy with the anarchic ZAZIE DANS LE METRO (1960) and, with Luis Bunuel's daughter-in-law Joyce contributing to his script here, it could well be that the use in the film under review of Wagner's music – also heard in the elder Bunuel's L'AGE D'OR (1930) and WUTHERING HEIGHTS (1954) – was a deliberate nod in his direction. The leading lady of BLACK MOON is a beguiling Cathryn Harrison, granddaughter of Rex; also in the cast are Alexandra Stewart and Joe Dalessandro as incestuous siblings (neither of whom ever utter a single word, though he likes to express himself in baritone!).The film's war-torn landscape is undercut by a plethora of entomological detail, beginning with a raccoon getting crushed under the heroine's car's wheels and ending with a snake slithering up her skirt!; there is also a giant rodent – with which the eccentric old lady of the central setting, a dilapidated country-house, frequently engages in gibberish conversation (for whatever reason, she also keeps a control center by her bedside!) – and a squat talking brown unicorn, which seems to particularly intrigue Harrison!!The elderly woman – who died before the picture was released (in fact, it is dedicated to her memory) – occasionally takes the semblance of death even here and, when she comes to again, finds herself craving milk: Stewart and, eventually, Harrison oblige her in this regard – the film, then, ends on a shot of the heroine about to feed the afore-mentioned horse in the very same manner! Harrison, too, seems fond of milk – which she repeatedly drinks out of a very tall glass set at table, always with a pig nonchalantly looking on!; besides, a brood of wild naked children are continually seen chasing a hog all over the place.In the end, the film proves too obscure and personal for complete success and, yet, it is certainly not to be ignored by way of its intrinsic strangeness and undeniably haunting quality.

writers_reign The interesting thing about Louis Malle is that he is often lumped with the new waveleteers primarily because he shot a feature - Lift To The Scaffold in English - on location shortly after Godard's Brainless and Truffaut's The 400 Yawns, when in fact he has always (or so I thought) made more or less mainstream films. With Black Moon the Academic-Psued axis may well be justified in labeling him with something trendy like post-New Wave because Black Moon is a genre-defying one-off and it meets the principal criterion of Academia in that it can be about ANYTHING they want it to be which means they can 'teach' it til the cows come home offering a different interpretation each semester. For the rest of us mere mortals we can either take it or leave it. We not first the depressing colour and equally depressing landscape, a suggestion of late Autumn of even full Winter negated by the gamboling/frolicking of totally naked children. The protagonist - if that's not overstating it - is clearly old enough to drive, i.e. late teens, who can get away with early twenties yet is also perversely childlike. In rapid succession she encounters 1)armed militia who mow down a group of innocent civilians, 2) a group of naked children playing with a pig, 3) an apparently bed-ridden old woman who talks into a wireless set via a microphone and 4) a unicorn - grey-black rather than pure white - with whom she is able to converse. We are free to make of this what we will. Multiplex fodder it's not. intriguing? This depends entirely on your own point of view. Mesmerising? See above. Watchable? Yes.

mrgan_t PLEASE READ THE WHOLE THING!!!!!!!!! OK, anybody who says they "liked" this movie or thought it was "intellectual" is a complete idiot. this movie had absolutely no plot, fun, entertainment, point, theme, message moral, or anything else that you would watch a movie for. seriously, was the first scene with the woman driving and hitting the badger or whatever really necessary? and the part where she drove down a hill and saw some weird guy and some sheep was totally pointless and gave me a headache. and another thing, what was with the naked little kids runnin around? that was just stupid. and is there really a war going on who was that old lady callin on the radio? one more, couldn't they make a more believable unicorn? it looked like someone rolled up a newspaper and taped it to a donkey's head. they only give me 1000 words to review this move, but that most certainly isn't enough. i could write at LEAST five hundred pages on why this movie was awful, but i would have a stroke if i had to relive this piece of crap again. you would have a more fulfilling experience if you boiled garbage in cat urine and ate that while having weasels gnaw on your feet, and that would leave you feeling much better about yourself than if you watched this movie. whoever decided to curse the world with this grotesquely bad film should be forced to watch it over and over for the rest of their lives. seriously, DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE.