El niño de la luna

The protagonist of Augustin Villaronga's 1989 film EL NIÑO DE LA LUNA (Moonchild) is David (Enrique Saldana), a little orphan with, we're told, mysterious powers usually manifested as telekinesis. One day, David is adopted from the orphanage by the stern Ms. Victoria (Maribel Martin), only to find that his new home is a research facility where children like him are studied in an attempt to create some kind of supermen. Hearing that the uncivilized blacks of Africa have a prophecy about a white "child of the moon", the little misfit escapes, taking with him two other research specimens, Edgar (David Sust) and Georgina (Lisa Gerrard, best known as one half of Dead Can Dance).

This film has been unavailable for many years and is mainly forgotten. I imagine that most people searching for it are fans of Dead Can Dance wanting to see Lisa Gerrard's only acting credit and hear DCD's film score. Both are disappointments. Gerrard has no especial acting talent and she only succeeds in serving the story here because her character is written as borderline-retarded. Her dialogue is dubbed into Spanish too. For the most part, Dead Can Dance's soundtrack is generic synthesizer tones, and only at a brief few seconds do we hear material similar to that of their album of the same year THE SERPENT'S EGG.

The first half of EL NIÑO DE LA LUNA is basically shots of David in anguish alternating with foreboding images of the moon. The encounter of David with the black tribe is about as fair a depiction of Sub-Saharan Africa as Tintin in the Congo. This is a bad film, and one that provokes bafflement. We find a godawful script tied to lavish production values (especially set design and costumes). Who put up the money for this? And once it was inexplicably committed to film, who picked this as Spain's official entry for the Cannes Film Festival of that year? These are questions.

It deals with a child named David (Enrique Saldana) who is adopted by an ominous , treacherous sect led by a stiff-upper-lip ruler (Lucia Bose) and an understanding woman called Victoria (Maribel Martin) . But David along with a young called Edgar (David Sust) and a pregnant girl called Victoria (Lisa Gerrard) escape from the terrible fascist and Nazi-alike center towards Africa where David's fate awaits him . As David who possesses extrasensory perception undergoes an adventurous voyage throughout Africa and to resolve his fate as Child Of The Moon . But David and Victoria are mercilessly chased by the heinous organization .

This is an eerie film with fantastic events , mystery , suspense , adventures and results to be pretty interesting . Being well produced by the marriage Maribel Martin and the early deceased Julian Mateos , both of them produced three thought-provoking films : Los Santos Inocentes , Viaje a Ninguna Parte and this El Niño De La Luna . Interpretations by the enjoyable main cast are frankly well . Adequate support cast such as Lucia Bose , Mary Carrillo , a brief acting by a young Luis Homar , Jordi Bosch , uncredited Pep Tosar and Gunter Meisner who starred Agusti Villaronga's previous film : Tras El Cristal .

Colorful and brilliant cinematography by the veteran photographer Jaume Peracaula. Jaume is considered to be one of the best Spanish cameramen who has photographed a lot of successes such as : Inconscientes , La Hora De Los Valientes , Despues Del Sueño , Blanca Paloma , La Cripta , among others . Mysterious and New Age musical score by Dead Can dance (band led by Lisa Gerrard). Lisa Gerrard , subsequently became a famous soundtrack composer with hits as Gladiator , Ali , Man on fire , Heat and Priest . The motion picture was well directed by Agusti Villaronga , though it has some flaws , gaps and turns out to be overlong . Agusti is a good filmmaker , and Goya winner . As ¨Niño De La Luna¨ won Goyas for screenplay , costume design and make-up . Villaronga is expert on films plenty of dark and weird atmospheres such as : El Mar , 99.9 , Aro Tolbukhin , Tras El Cristal , and his most successful film was ¨Pan Negro¨ that also won several Goya Awards

This is not what it sounds like. It is approximately a kids' mystical adventure movie, on the order of The Black Stallion, except for a nude sex scene, followed by what looks like a surgical procedure that I didn't understand. In structure this is a suspense movie, but the suspense is limited to escape and pursuit; the mystical or metaphysical element--the child's visions, the scientific-occult conspiracy to which he is delivered, and so forth--which one would expect to be churned into melodrama, as the same situation was in The Fury, is presented matter-of-factly, rather as magic realism.

Alastair Crowley's novel of the same title has a different plot, but may still have inspired the movie, because it also involves a scheme by an occult group to generate a child with magical powers, and the film has about it an air of the 20s, as perhaps of Rex Ingram (one of whose films concerned a fictional Crowley).

The story has flaws: e.g. it forgets that the main characters have "wild talents," and so their escape and pursuit is a matter of mundane running and hiding; for someone in the clutches of an authoritarian group with a recruited cadre of psychics, the child is able to sneak in and out very easily; characters' affections and determinations change without warning--all of which suit the kids' movie this (almost) is.

Firstly I'd advise anyone considering watching this title to see "In a glass cage" first...A darker film with difficult subject matter but it gives you a sense of where the directors interests,themes and talents lye.In short...a wonderful eye for composition, a very loose free association with respect to characters motivations and their interactions with each other(in both films its as much the inner fantasy or "true" personal vision of each protagonist that drives forward the plot) and a dark undercurrent of secret societies and cults(very much of the 30s 40s) seemingly able to turn the world and the immediate society they present into a dark twilight where danger and perversion seem ever present.Be clear though ... neither film is sensational or lurid...there is a moral compass at work here and thankfully so.In many ways there's much of the dark fairytale here but how many directors take such material and play it by the numbers until the poetic vision is lost...Villaronga does not...Finally if you like this you might consider "Born of fire" by Dehlavi and "Revenge" by Shinarbaev.

Villaronga's next movie after the magnificent IN A GLASS CAGE feels undercooked. There is a premise and there is a central character, but aspects of this "fantasy" are muddled.

The plot involves a wise child (Enrique Saldana), identified as possessing special powers, taking part in a pilgrimage that takes him to Africa -- it's a KUNDUN-esqe journey that hints at a religious, faith-based revelation that never materializes. The reason for there being "interest" in the child, from some quarters, is never fully explained, summing up the film's major problem: Too much is left up to the audience to decipher.

This being a Villaronga film, much of the imagery is commanding and the performances are strong, but the structure is weak.

A curious casting choice is Australian-born composer Lisa Gerrard (whose credits include co-writing GLADIATOR with Hans Zimmer and scoring Michael Mann's THE INSIDER) as a strange woman who has a spiritual connection to the boy "savior".

Not recommended and not widely available.