It’s the hot summer of 1972: the Americans launch their last mission to the moon; also a time of dungarees and hallucinogenic wallpaper. On the eighth floor of a new Dutch apartment block, 12-year-old Duch lives with his family. His hobbies are space travel and Mary, the pretty woman next door. Duch’s father prefers to watch the neighbour who recently moved in two doors down. Her arrival makes the residents aware of the free-sex morality. Up until now it had left the eighth floor untouched, but that is clearly not to everyone’s satisfaction. Visual artist Dick Tuinder contrasts the tragicomic adventures of his protagonists with the lost illusions of the transitional year 1972. In 1969, there was still optimism and the first man stood on the moon. Three years later, the Vietnam War had been virtually lost and the oil crisis was approaching. While radio and TV reports brought world news into living rooms, things got pretty much out of hand on the eighth floor. Farewell to the Moon is a lot like an exuberant sitcom, but the film certainly doesn’t have the cardboard cutout sets that go with the genre. On the contrary: every detail looks authentic. Tuinder filmed on location in the Zonneflat in Deventer – a block like many another in Holland, but also where he happened to grow up. This could confirm the suspicion that the film has more than a touch of autobiography.
