I haven't had much opportunity or desire to voice my dissent to the predominant digital camerawork, the sort of shallow-focus, not-quite-handheld freefloating image that's all over contemporary cinema American and not. It's never used to much of an interesting end and a movie grabs my attention when it doesn't have that style. So by some aesthetic miracle (or maybe just talented filmmaking), Barry Jenkins directs this with that sort of cinematography and actually underlines the soul of the picture. Throughout but especially the first two sections, the camera rarely stays put, gazing around to focus on details surrounding Chiron, much in the same way he gazes at Juan's placemat rather than looking at any person in the scene. It usually stays still in moments where Chiron is who he is (or who the film thinks he should be): on the beach with Kevin, for example. Rare moments of stillness in the oppressively chaotic space he was born into.