A Sultry Summer’s Promise
Back in 1988, ‘Two Moon Junction’ was marketed as a romance novel and a Southern Gothic tale all in one. King was a still a novice director, as his first film was ‘9 weeks and 9 Days’ as a co-writer and a producer. No one was surprised as to why this film was produced. After his co-writing and producing a blockbuster film, King was expected to earn just as much attention from this film as anyone else, as it was a mind-blowing work filled with emotion and eroticism.
America in the late 1980s was still very much a capitalist country, and the film’s advertisement featured a working class ‘carnevil’ drifter and a rich Southern woman as main characters. Who wouldn’t want to see the woman in the quote “A Southern belle…divorcing her posh husband.”? America was mesmerized showing just how much of a cultural stone the film was. Nobody could explain how much this film alone could say about the women of America.
The Story of April and Perry
Like most other films, the motivation of Two Moon Junction was the main character, April de Longpre. April, a Southern belle from a very wealthy family, was the first to start the story. We see her at the beginning of the film, doing what a perfect wife does best and preparing for the perfect marriage to the perfect husband. People would see her as a calm and obedient young lady, which she was, yet she was a captive of her own head.
The pivotal moment in April’s life comes with the arrival of Perry (Richard Tyson), a handsome carnival worker. Sparks fly and Perry is April’s greatest taboo in which her world is built upon. He is the epitome of chaos and fantasy wrapped in freedom and desire. For the next 6 months he was her everything.
The raging temperature in a southern summer proved to be a perfect backdrop to the carnivals, riverbanks and the moonlit fields which exhibited the passionate fantasy set in the world of Perry. With Perry, abstaining from the expectations of her family, especially from her grandma Belle (Louise Fletcher), was overwhelmed and lost in the pursuit of self-discovery. The movie, unlike many romantic movies from the same time, is more about exploring a life changing bond rather than the boring theme of happily ever after.
Emotional story arcs from the characters
April’s character in this movie is about a journey to enlightenment. On the surface she is an ideal debutante, yet every time she encounters Perry, she loses a part of her. Ms. Fenn liberates the character from all restraints and shows the world how approval and validation is not a requirement for a woman to build something for herself.
Perry, in contrast, comes less multilayered than the rest, although he serves as an interesting litmus test. Tyson imbues him with rugged charm and unapologetic masculinity which makes portraiting him compelling. One sees in his the reason why April would risk it all. But the extent of Perry’s development also sparked debate. Was he a character, or a character made up solely to facilitate April’s escape exquisite prison?
Belle, Fletcher’s character and grandmother in the movie who is also a southern, comes complete with backbone and charm. She is more than just a cartoon ‘bad-guy’ and serves to remind the audience of the social pressures shackling April. With her presence, Fletcher gave the movie weight and along with it, a juxtaposition to the elements of untamed sensuality.
When the curtains fall, what comes next for the cast?
As for Sherilyn Fenn, even Two Moon Junction, stood as a major cornerstone in her career. Two years following the film, Fenn became an international sensation for her role in Twin Peaks, but in this film, she was busy molding her own persona, a vice less actress. Used in the former context, the word bold masks underlying negative / positive connotations. She became the target of numerous so called ‘feminine’ roles because her choice to appear in a daring film was in the mold of the expected social behavior of the time.
To Richard Tyson, his role in Two Moon Junction was a breakout, glass ceiling moment. Despite the rethroning of his heartthrob status in the early 1990s, the role did come with a heightened concern of being pigeonholed into roles that focused on his physique rather than his artistry.
For Louise Fletcher, the role of a life time was more of an added surplus for her already decorated career due to her astounding performance in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Fletcher’s presence brought in an element of authenticity to the film that could have otherwise been disregarded due to the portrayal of soft-core melodrama. Without her, the film would have focused too much into the realm of fantasy.
Cinematic Touches: What Worked and What Fell Short
Zalman King’s direction was most certainly refined by focus on the atmosphere that was being created for the film. The cinematography, gloomy yet golden, soft as a glow but stark as a knife, lit the heat and secrecy of a Junction. Music swelled in over-the-top emotive fashion as it hit a fevered pitch, as a dream fixes itself into a contraption, and we drift further away from the realms of a conventional love story.
The whispered promises of a sultry night; the flying, shimmering treasures of the fair glowing in the tangled embrace of shadow; the long, languorous Southern miles; the sacred atavistic frame of April and Perry’s almost-aloof rendezvous. What fell short: almost everything else. Unbelievably beautiful, heart and body colliding in gilded ecstasy, and King was mesmerized.
What didn’t the film cover? The storytelling lapse. As noted by reviewers, the film looked beautiful, but the plot could be very shallow. Characters like Perry were left uncharacterized while the dialogue was borderline melodramatic. People expecting the psychological intricacies of 9½ Weeks would simply consider ‘Two Moon Junction’ to be a rather bland representation of a romance novel.
Audience Reception and the Divide
During its release, ‘Two Moon Junction’ was able to polarize its audiences. While some appreciated the film, earning it a cult status for the sultry and taboo romance it depicted, others critiqued the film for prioritizing a sensationalized storyline over adequate narrative.
During the era when VHS’s were becoming widely popular, the film was offered for rent. Viewers who were reluctant to view the film in a theater were able to view it in their homes, allowing the film to broaden its audience. This also allowed the film to gain a following, similar to the later productions of Zalman King like ‘Wild Orchid’ and ‘Red Shoe Diaries’. Young viewers in the late 80’s and early 90’s were able to watch the em in private, allowing it to gain a sensational status.
Stories from Behind the Curtain
The debates regarding the casting of April are very hard to come by. While some call it a myth, the reality is that April was much more than ‘the one who got away’ to its ambitious and more than willing candidate, Sherilyn Fenn. Fenn embraced the nudity and erotic intensity while most ‘more’ iconographies fled from Fenn’s unfathomable strength and willingness, which is just how much of a where Fenn. It was her willingness to expose her inner self which the butterfly which was April cocooned.
They remarked the and saw the appreciation of Fenn and Tyson as a positive reflection of the more working actors is appreciated and studied. It is understood that much of her first Tyson raw energy was a more ‘let’s just do’ approach while her polished approach was much more calculating and structured. Their tension to friction was never more than and Tyson raw was a Fenn polite and drifter approach.
At the time things were said of the notorious Zalman King. His working technique of meticulously controlling erotic imagery gained him a reputation that Zulman took. Fenn was often pushed into moments that bared more than she could handle and therefore more often than not, authenticity is more appreciated than calculated moments. character and actress blurred, which is why she is seen as the angle of an actress.
Unbeknownst to many, the film was completed on a relatively low budget, even though it appeared to have been lavishly financed. The Production was conducted in the Natural Southern parts of the United States to create the atmosphere, the much recalled sultriness was authentic. It was captured in blistering summer conditions, to the extent that the crew was sweating profusely, much like the actors, during the shooting of the scenes.
The Lasting Echo of a Southern Affair
In spite of the fact that Two Moon Junction does not hold the title of a mainstream classic, it has certainly made its mark. For Tyson, it served as a momentary glimpse of fame; as for Sherilyn Fenn, it was a launching pad. For Zalman King, it was a declaration of the type of cinema he aspired to create: the intertwining of desire, power and defiance, woven together.
More than three decades later, it remains one of those films that gets whispered about as opppsed to openly appraised. The daring move of placing a woman’s conflicted desire at the center of the story was noted part of the film’s legacy, though it was set in dreamy Southern imagery, it was unfortunately not able to satisfy all. For the rest of the audience, it was a reminder that in some cases, the most unresolved interactions leave a deeper mark on one’s memory.
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