Writer-director Ava DuVernay is someone you have to admire. She has never shied away from challenging themes and emotionally charged realities in any of her works, from Selma to When They See Us. She consistently incorporates significant concepts into her work and makes an effort to comprehend the world around her. The same is true of her most recent feature film.
Arguably DuVernay’s most emotionally complicated effort to date, Origin shares similarities in weight and content with her Netflix documentary 13th. Origin takes a scholarly approach to examining the power mechanisms of caste systems throughout history and how they have exploited, legislated against, stigmatized, divided, and conquered marginalized communities. It does this by meticulously piecing together real case studies.
The movie has a significant effect when it does find its strength and resonance.
Our tour guide on this trip is the Pulitzer-winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor), who is studying Caste: The Origins Of Our Discontents, the book upon which the movie is based. The narrative starts with Trayvon Martin’s death at the hands of George Zimmerman and develops into a vast, international trip that links the suffering of the Dalit people in India, the Holocaust against Jews in Nazi Germany, and the enslavement of Black people in the United States. The disclosures are chilling, in true DuVernay fashion: witnessing the Nazis model the Holocaust on the Jim Crow laws of the segregated Deep South makes your skin crawl.
It’s not easy to watch any of this. It serves as a somber reminder of the discrimination that dehumanizes and targets other people. However, in order to depict this important story, the director must take an audacious swing for such a big exploration. DuVernay combines her personal journey—which follows the untimely deaths of her mother Ruby (Emily Yancy) and husband Brett (Jon Bernthal)—with dramatized historical events. The goal is admirable; it provides crucial context while giving a Black woman and her craft a voice and agency.
It’s a risky creative decision that isn’t always successful. The end effect can be disorganized at times, a collision of ideas that don’t always seem to agree. However, the film has a significant impact when it does find its strength and resonance, at least enough to motivate more investigation (you’ll find yourself wanting to read Wilkerson’s book). When it’s at its best, Ellis-Taylor’s powerful acting and DuVernay’s poetic direction combine to create a captivating, poignant experience.