Can a genre be said to be exist on the basis of two examples?  For me, John Carpenter’s Dark Star and Douglas Trumbull’s Silent Running belong together as intelligent lo-fi science fiction movies that had a reach extending far beyond their humble budgets.  I saw both films in my teens, and even then was struck by the fact that they didn’t feel like any other sf movies I’d seen.  And now, all these years later, a third film sits alongside those two: Moon, written and directed by Duncan Jones.

Moon captures the grubby ambience and intellectual sophistication of the books of Philip K. Dick far more successfully than any of the actual adaptations of his work, such as Blade Runner and Total Recall.  The latter are almost obliged to up the action and sexiness of Dick’s decidedly unglamorous creations to justify their humungous budgets in the hope that they’ll do at the box office what other big shiny sf movies have achieved.

Duncan Jones studied philosophy before working in commercials, and both influences show.  This is very much a film based on concepts of identity, which is what makes the Dick comparison apt.  A man — played by Sam Rockwell — working on his own on the moon discovers that there are a whole bunch of clones of him stashed away, which doesn’t do wonders for his state of mind and leads to him uncovering what amounts to a corporate conspiracy.  Why it works is because this isn’t played out as an intellectual issue: it’s emotionally charged, and wisely pitched at the level of feelings throughout.

As a first film, Moon is an astonishing feat.  Yes, Jones has been directing commercials for a while, and learned a lot at the level of craft and discipline from that experience.  More impressive is the understated intelligence of the story, which is by turns shocking and touching and never goes near overplaying what some filmmakers would have made gimmicky.  The fact that Trudy Styler is involved in producing it is enough to make me forgive her for inflicting Guy Ritchie on the world.

Moon works on every level.  Sam Rockwell’s performances are first class, neatly delineating one clone from the other without it being at all showy.  The look of the film is similarly understated, influenced by 2001 and Alien without labouring the point.  And Clint Mansell’s music is beautiful, haunting and subtle, featuring simple piano motifs against atmospherics and propulsive drumming: I’m listening to it at the moment, making the most of its availability on Spotify.

Altogether, this couldn’t be a more satisfying debut, and I’m sure that Jones will go on to make more films with the same kind of signature intelligence that characterises the work of his father, David Bowie.  Next up is a bigger budget project, another science fiction offering, Duncan’s take on something like Blade Runner, set in a future Berlin.

Given the paucity of quality British film making, and of original voices within the scene, it’s refreshing to come across someone with the quiet questioning attitude that Duncan Jones brings to Moon.  And it’s interesting that he comes to us via the world of advertising, and not the UK Film Council and its regional franchises.  Say what you like about commercials, but you learn a lot making them, and can earn enough from doing so to develop a future as a filmmaker — one of the executive producers on Moon is Trevor Beattie, corkscrew-haired adman behind campaigns including FCUK and Wonderbra, and a man with a keener eye for popular culture than most.  Maybe in the absence of guidance from the UKFC, we have to turn to the man who gave us FCUK…

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