"Moonwalker" and me
By now, I have known this movie for at least fifteen years! When I was a little child,
Michael Jackson was the top of the charts and at the height of his career. My
brother (who is four years older) and me were gripped by the Jackson madness!
When my parents taped this movie from telefon so we could watch it over and
over again, my brother did nothing else but dance and sing along with the movie
for weeks!
While my brother grew out of his Michael jackson love, I feel like this awesome singer
has been with me through my whole life.

The Movie

First part of the movie
"Moonwalker" ist not your average music movie. This film is more of a collection
of short segments crafted together!
First, you see a song from a live concert ("Man in the mirror") with pictures of
Ghandi, John Lennon and children in Africa mended in.
After that, we see a table covered in precious items connected to Michael Jackon's
carrer, music videos and stage outfits. There are also photographs of the Jackson
Five. It goes on with the works of this sweet band! We see a long clip with bits
of Jackson Five songs, as well as newspaper articles and clips from Michael's
solo career.
This beautiful collage fades into Michael's later career, including scenes from the
videos of "Why", "Dirty Diana" and "The Way You Make Me Feel".

When the teenagers leave, Mini-Michael leaves the set and goes down a set of
stairs with what seems to be his manager. You start to notice that the parking
deck seems to be part of a giant studio complex. The young Michael and his
people leave the place and exit the set through a foggy entrance - and out comes
the real, grown-up Michael Jackson!
Following this sequence is a scene I have always liked a lot.
Michael is in a giant, park-like film studio through which tourists take tours. One
group spots Michael and chaos arises! Now Michael has to run away from the
screaming crowd that will hunt him for photosgraphs and signatures!
The weird thing is that almost all these people have giant play dough heads. My
boyfriend mentioned it reminded him of "Wallace&Grommit".
In the end, Michael manages to flee from the set on a motorbike. His escape on it
is the music video of "Speed Femon". The confusing music video of "Leave me
alone" is also being shown. In that video Michael is tied and chained into a little
theme park. Rollercoasters and amusements are built around him. Through the
video we sometimes say newspapers with silly headlines that have been written
about him.

Personal impression
This movie has been with me for my whole live and has left an impression on me.
When I saw it has a grown up, I had to smile because I realized I had never fully
understood it.
I never noticed that Dileo was planning to make children become drug addicts!
And I was never bothered by how confusingly the first half of the movie is put
together.
Upon watching the movie now, I find possibly edges for criticism. Nevertheless, it
is hard to criticise a movie that is so unique in it's structure and presentation.
If you are already a grown up when seeing this movie for the first time and are not
even a Jackson-fan, you may find the first forty minutes very confusing. You see
pasted together music videos for 25 minutes with a lot of added glitter effects.
The chase through the film studio, the highway racing and the strange video of
"Leave me alone" - it may seems weird to you. But if you are ready to take this
colourful journey through Michael's life, you will enjoy it!
The main movie may seem like Michael Jackson walked up to a director with a list
titled "Things I've always wanted to do". And will this list has been worked and
fulfileld beautiful and in a fun way, gaps and jumps in the structure may appear
odd to some viewers.
And, of course, you will be asking yourself questions concerning logic and sense.
Why does Dileo take such big measures to kill Michael? Why is Dileo, as a drug
dealer, wealthy enough to maintain a giant laser gun which would need the power
of all atomic power plant to fire? Why does he have a whole armee? Why does
Michael care so deeply for these kids and go out and play with them when they
obviously know nothing about what he does? Why do they spy on him at the
beginning? Katie obviously knows he needs shooting stars, but when they see
Michael transform they are deeply shocked!
Those questions might be fun to ask, but they don't make the film less beautiful
or less entertaining. The movie was released twenty years ago and I dare say
that the audience back then was less likely to ask these kinds of questions. I feel
like people were more willing to accept outrageous and sometimes ilogical
stuff. Maybe the wish to get away from reality was bigger back then. This wish
is the essence of "Moonwalker" and maybe Michael Jackson's motivation behind
it.

Special Features
Sadly, there is only one special feature - the US trailer of "Moonwalker".
But as the credits roll after the movie, you get some behind-the-scenes bits!