"Luminous Motion" is a strange, yet disturbing movie. It's about the relationship between a precocious 10 y/o boy (Phillip) and his mother ("Mom", we don't get introduced to her name). She is the only important person in his life, his love for her is very strong and he kind of feels responsible for her. They have been on the road for several years, always in motion, and that's the only thing he cares about beneath his Mom: being in motion! Phillip wants to be in motion and he wants to be together with his Mom, who is like a bright shining star to him. So the movement together with Mom is a "luminous motion", like the title says. At least that's my interpretation of it. By the way: Mom makes money with one-night-stands and the little things (like credit cards) she relieves her victims of. Phillip doesn't attend a school of course, but he educates himself with reading biology, chemistry and physics books on the backseat.
But the day comes when everything changes: Mom can't drive due to an increased alcoholic content in her blood, so Phillip takes the wheel. He recently read something about the speed of light in his physics book, so he wants to find out if he can reach that speed with Mom's car. I don't have to tell you that the car crashes, you can figure that part out by yourself. Phillip wakes up on a couch in a house, Pedro's house. Pedro is a friendly guy who passed by the accident and towed their crashed car. What a shock for the boy: they stopped moving! It becomes even worse when Mom falls in love with Pedro and decides to stay with him. No, that cannot be tolerated! Mom has to be protected, the motion must not stop: Pedro has to die!
We never exactly know for sure if Phillip really dispatched Pedro, but it's obvious. In the last scene at Pedro's house we see the lad preparing a drilling machine, the next scene is him and his mother on the road again - she is crying like hell, he is happy. Furthermore we see Pedro with blood coming out of his ear in later dreams of Phillip. The boy asks the ghost if he really killed him and says that he can't remember. But my version is that he did it, because the hectic escape and Mom's tears would be illogical otherwise and we see a bloody fingerprint in Phillip's dictionary.
They move to Staten Island where Mom rents a bedraggled house. Once more they stopped moving, but at least they are alone again. Phillip can live with that, he even finds two weird teenagers from the neighborhood as new friends: a guy who practices black magic and a girl with a low attitude towards the male sex.
But now the surprise: Dad has returned! After three years! Phillip did have visible and audible (via phone) visions of him and now he's there in real. Mom wasn't feeling too well lately - emotionally and physically - and she's glad to have her husband back. He's a successful business man, he means security. He even plans building a new house for the new old family.
Phillip doesn't like the idea - he's his Dad, Okay, but why does he show up all of a sudden? He and Mom were doing fine without him, he's not needed. He could even prevent them from starting to move again one day. So what can we do about it? How about a little toxic mixture in Dad's dish? What do we have this nice chemistry book for? Unfortunately Dad survives this assault. But what do we have a friend for who practices black magic? With his help Phillip would manage to kill his father...
And here comes the second disturbing scene. After they have shackled Dad to a chair and Phillip is putting a saw (!) on his neck, Mom is suddenly sitting on the staircase, very relaxed and with a butt in her mouth. And that's what she says: "When you're finished in here, I want you to leave. You can take your father's Mercedes and all his money. I'll just say I was asleep in my room and didn't hear a thing. I still love you, Phillip!" Can you believe that? I won't spoil the end, see for yourself.
Pro & Contra: I like the movie's theme, it's something different. I also liked the fact that the "narrator in the background" is Phillip himself. I always prefer that to the same person telling the story as an adult. That's something I also like at the film "Jack the Bear", just to give you another example. Furthermore, the film focuses on the boy, and that's always a good thing.
Another plus are the well made opening credits and the introduction by Phillip that gives us some insights of his psychical/emotional condition, which makes it easier for us to understand his behavior: "My childhood seems like a ghost town, filled with blurred images and nightmares. And when I look back, I know my memory is hopelessly flooded and tangled with my imagination. I find it difficult to distinguish between what was real and what was something else"
What I didn't like is the following:
- The question is not really answered why Phillip always wants to keep moving. Maybe some flashbacks to his earlier childhood would have been helpful
- The thing with the black magic guy is unnecessary in my view, it should have been exchanged with something else
- In the second part the movie becomes a little too weird; it's hard to distinguish between what's real and what's not
The film features some cool sayings, like:
- "I love my mother - do you?" (Phillip to one of Mom's "dates")
- "Of course I've got a father - everyone has a father, it's a law of nature" (Phillip to the question if he has a father)
- "Mom, it's true: you do have the sweetest breasts" (Phillip to his mother to cheer her up)
- "Mom, you gotta eat something; I don't think alcohol has enough nutrients" (Phillip to his sick mother)
- "I don't have a problem, you do. You are the problem, you're a man - men are supposed to be confused" (the feminist girl Beatrice to Phillip)
- "You even have your own website" (Dad to Phillip when talking about the cool features of their future home)
- "'I know exactly what I'm going to do' - this is just like a man: he knows everything about everything, but nothing about himself" (Beatrice citing Phillip)
