Locarno Special Jury Prize Winner Proves Elliptical

Unfolding in two very different locations, “Moon,” the elliptical second feature from Iraq-born Austrian filmmaker Kurdwin Ayub (“Sun”) follows a mixed martial arts fighter who has reached the end of her competitive career. Faced with a lack of opportunity in her small Austrian town, she accepts a temporary gig training the daughters of an ultra-rich, but shady Jordanian family. While the multiple ellipses may annoy the more narratively-driven viewer, others will thrill to the mood Ayub creates and the way she plays with audience expectations. The film nabbed a special jury prize in Locarno competition as well as the independent film critics kudos, and should be in demand at further fests. 

After her last go-round in the MMA cage leaves her sorely beaten and defeated, Sarah (Florentina Holzinger) falls into a depression. Previously, she lived to train and compete, but now she has a hard time figuring out her next step. 

Sarah starts giving lessons at a local gym; unfortunately, her program is a bit too hardcore for the amateurs whose only aim is to look cool in boxing gloves. Her bourgeois older sister Bea (Tanya Ivankovic), a new mother, urges her to make a business plan; but instead, Sarah jumps at a job offer from slick Arab businessman Abdul (Omar Almajali) that whisks her away from her current stresses into the patriarchal sphere of the Middle Eastern mega-wealthy: a space with its own problems, especially for young, unmarried women. 

Soon, it becomes clear that Sarah skipped due diligence about the country, its customs and the family she is working for. Driven each day to a grand but isolated villa on the outskirts of Amman, she finds the three Al Farahadi sisters that she is supposed to train to be oddly listless. Nour (Andria Tayeh), Shaima (Nagham Abu Baker) and Fatima (Celina Antwan) never leave home except for bodyguard-accompanied trips to the mall. And they don’t even have wi-fi. Home-schooled, catered to by maids and under near-constant surveillance, they have little to occupy themselves apart from applying makeup, watching soap operas or performing their prayers.

By the time Sarah begins to ask questions –— of the girls themselves and of the bar staff at her luxury hotel — the unexplained small brutalities she puzzled over develop into something more tragic.

Some parts of the film feel a bit clunky, particularly the fact that Sarah keeps wandering upstairs to the off-limits part of the villa, in spite of the consternation it causes and the menacing looks she receives from the Al Farahadi factotum (Amar Odeh). However, the relationship between the sisters and their interactions with Sarah feel spot on. The film’s only humorous moment occurs when the make-up crazy Fatima tries to use Sarah like a living doll.

Cages, no matter where they are, constitute the underlying theme of Ayub’s screenplay. She explores the physical and metaphorical cages a person might want to leave and the ones they might wish to return to.

As the physically strong, but not especially empathetic, Sarah, first-time film actor Holzinger (known for her choreography and performance art) perfectly embodies a foreigner out of her depth. The distaff Jordanian cast are heartbreaking. The naturalistic camerawork of DoP Klemens Hufnagl (who shot Sudabeh Mortezai’s “Joy” and “Europa”) keeps a tight focus on Sarah and contrasts the visual differences between Austria and Jordan.