Maribel Martín

Lisa Gerrard

Lucia Bosè

Mary Carrillo

Günter Meisner

Enrique Saldana

David Sust

Heidi Ben Amar

Lydia Azzopardi

Jack Birkett

Lluís Homar

Albert Dueso

Joaquim Cardona

Lydia Zimmermann

Ramon Colomina

Xesc Barceló

Javier Navarrete

Jordi Bosch

Luciano Federico

Llàtzer Escarceller

Lucia De Sousa

Paco Villar

Agustí Villaronga

Selma Baccar

Adolfo Cora

Jaime Fernández-Cid

Julián Mateos

Dead Can Dance

Jaume Peracaula

Raúl Román

Francesc Candini

Montse Amenós

Isidre Prunés

Fantasy

Drama

Science Fiction

El niño de la luna

Ganesh Producciones Cinematográficas

Spain

The protagonist of Augustin Villaronga's 1989 film El niño de la luna (Moonchild) is David (Enrique Saldana), a little orphan with, we're told, mysterious powers usually manifested as telekinesis. One day, David is adopted from the orphange by the stern Ms. Victoria (Maribel Martin), only to find that his new home is a research facility where children like him are studied in an attempt to create some kind of supermen. Hearing that the uncivilized blacks of Africa have a prophecy about a white "child of the moon", the little misfit escapes, taking with him two other research specimens, Edgar (David Sust) and Georgina (Lisa Gerrard, best known as one half of Dead Can Dance).

This film has been unavailable for many years and is mainly forgotten. I imagine that most people searching for it are fans of Dead Can Dance wanting to see Lisa Gerrard's only acting credit and hear DCD's film score. Both are disappointments. Gerrard has no especial acting talent and she only succeeds in serving the story here because her character is written as borderline-retarded. Her dialogue is dubbed into Spanish too. For the most part, the soundtrack is generic synthesizer tones, and only at a brief few seconds do we hear material similar to that of their album of the same year THE SERPENT'S EGG.

The first half of El niño de la luna is basically shots of David in anguish alternating with foreboding images of the moon. The encounter of David with the black tribe is about as fair a depiction of Sub-Saharan Africa as Tintin in the Congo. This is a bad film, and one that provokes bafflement. We find a godawful script tied to lavish production values (especially set design and costumes). Who put up the money for this? And once it was inexplicably committed to film, who picked this as Spain's official entry for the Cannes Film Festival of that year? These are questions.

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Moon Child

Moon Child (1989) Original Trailer [FHD]