Told entirely using projected animation onto real, polystyrene film sets, Mamoon is a fascinating and brilliantly conceived film. It follows the story of a mother and child, whose lives descend into darkness when the moon, and then their entire city, are engulfed by shadows. Fleeing the calamity, they discover a strange red light that may prove to be their salvation.
There is something really quite sinister and sorrowful about the start of this touching animation as a mother and her baby are slowly engulfed in a darkness descending from the sky over their almost biblical looking town. Is it something menacingly oppressive, or is it just the setting of the sun reflecting against their moon? As she becomes more frantic, she espies a glow in the distance. Might that offer them both some hope of salvation? It's the way the blackness is applied here that is most striking. It doesn't just gradually ebb like a tide, but appears to surround her in blocks - as if it were deliberately out to get the exposed pair. The contrast between the focussed brightness of the colour and the prevailing monochrome silhouettes is effective and the story also benefits from leaving us uncertain until the very end as to what is, or it not, going to happen to this vulnerable woman and her bairn.