NYAFF 09 Review: WHEN THE FULL MOON RISES

[Our thanks to Mark Popham for the following review.]

Parody, more than any other form of comedy, relies on a careful balance between homage and flat-out mockery. The reason why so many filmmakers intent on making an "affectionate spoof" or "loving pastiche" of some genre end up making crap is because they have to both mock generic conventions and somehow form some sort of coherent storyline out of them. When the Full Moon Rises, a send-up of Malaysian noir cinema, manages a pretty good balance until a false denouement around an hour in, and, sadly, falls apart in the last act.

It's difficult to review comedy from another country, in a language you don't speak- I'm consistently worried that I'm missing out on some major hilarity, not to mention the fact that I haven't seen any films of the genre When the Full Moon Rises sets out to spoof. I am reviewing this from the perspective of an Anglophone living in New York, and much of what I may critique as being random or meaningless may in fact be a cultural reference that I simply don't get. That being said, When the Full Moon Rises starts out strong. A recently unemployed journalist, Saleh, comes to a small town to investigate a series of mysterious disappearances, and is hindered in his investigation and occasionally beaten by the bizarre residents thereof. Additionally, Saleh is an idiot, easily distracted by the "Is that a bird?" ploy and has a hernia that forces him to run in a sort of a leap ("You guys in the theater, don't laugh- people who are sick run like this", the voiceover admonishes us). A cadre of Communists are discovered, blamed for the disappearance and arrested.

This is where the movie could have ended and, save for some weird notes (the Communists speak German, and are sort of like Nazis? One of the actors is (I swear to God) named M. Hitler Zami? He puts that on his checks and everything?), it could have been a pretty enjoyable hour-long spoof. But then everything gets boring. An entire new plot development involving curses and mystical daggers and witches comes along, and the need to explain this in the last twenty minutes of the film means that there simply isn't any time for comedy - When the Full Moon Rises suddenly just becomes a completely straight remake of a pulpy supernatural thriller. Even a zombie woman fighting a tiger man failed to shake me out of my ennui, a problem I never thought I'd have. When the Full Moon Rises falls prey to the 90 minute curse, where an hour of pretty funny material gets padded out to feature length.

Which is a shame, because the first hour or so is hilarious, if a bit broad. Saleh is pretty great, the townspeople are played with suitable quirkiness and some of the jokes- like Saleh being knocked unconscious, put on a train out of town, returning to town and, while walking out of the train station, being accosted and knocked unconscious again- are classics. Sometimes filmmakers need to realize that they've made an excellent hour-long film, and just walk away.

Review by Mark Popham