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…