Origin: Film Review
Ava DuVernay‘s latest film, Origin, has been massively overlooked this awards season and that’s a shame because Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor gives a remarkable performance.
She plays Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Isabel Wilkerson. After a series of personal tragedies, she throws herself into writing her acclaimed 2020 non-fiction book, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. The film follows her as she does her research and interviews scholars and case studies to present her argument that caste and racism are not the same thing. In her words: “Racism as the primary language to understand everything is insufficient.”
Wilkerson tries to draw parallels between Black people in America, Jews in Nazi Germany and the Dalits in India and explores the pillars that uphold caste systems (which place one group above another in a hierarchy) and keep certain groups of people down and in their place.
Origin tells an important story that should be used for educational purposes. It felt like a documentary at times – and perhaps that would have worked better than a narrative feature – but I came away feeling like I had learned something important. The treatment of Black people in America and Jews during the Holocaust are well documented on film but I didn’t know about the Dalits. The fact they’re dehumanised to the point of cleaning poo with their bare hands made me feel sick.
While I appreciated the staggeringly powerful message DuVernay wanted to convey, the pacing and structure felt off and it was far too long at 2 hours 21 minutes. In the beginning, it felt quite cold and disjointed, like a collection of scenes without any narrative flow. This improved once Wilkerson started her book in earnest and it came together in a hard-hitting way towards the end when passages from her book were accompanied by unflinching and upsetting imagery of marginalised people being dehumanised. The message was delivered loud and clear and I was an emotional wreck.
Ellis-Taylor is terrific as an academic who has to immerse herself in dark, heavy subjects for her book while dealing with grief personally. She has to shoulder a lot and I don’t know how she did it. There are loads of recognisable faces in this too from Jon Bernthal and Niecy Nash-Betts to Vera Farmiga and small appearances from Audra McDonald, Connie Nielsen, Finn Wittrock and Victoria Pedretti.
Origin often feels like it is teaching you a lesson, albeit a very vital one. It’s a sobering but essential watch.
In cinemas from Friday 8th March