“Origin,” directed by the Academy-Award nominated Ava Duvernay, was widely released on January 26th. It is a biopic about the first Black woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for journalism, Isabel Wilkerson (played by Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor), and her journey in writing the book “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.”
The film begins by reenacting the murder of the 17-year-old African American, Trayvon Martin. This story inspires Wilkerson’s intellectual pursuit of the origins of racism and caste systems, which are social hierarchies.
The idea of this story is to “redefine racism,” but it takes an offensive approach, claiming that racism is not racism, it is simply caste. This concept seemingly contradicts the film itself, since Wilkerson proves that most caste systems are based on racism. In the film, Wilkerson finds access to a translation of a Nazi meeting. The translation uncovers that the Nazis were inspired by America’s Jim Crow laws to lay the Nuremberg laws – which persecuted the Jewish people during the Holocaust and World War II. This research does prove Wilkerson’s belief that all castes are connected, but it also proves that racism is the groundwork for all caste systems.
The film simultaneously depicts the extremities of American systematic racism. As Wilkerson dines with her German friends, they compare modern-day Germany to America and uncover that the Germans have entirely cleansed the existence of the Nazis. However, in America, the celebration of racism still exists. Wilkerson even at a point says that American slavery is a form of terrorism.
The film then ended with a scene that brought gasps and tears from the audience. It depicted the true story of a baseball team who decided to celebrate their team’s victory at the public pool, but there was one problem, one of the teammates was Black. The boy was told he was not allowed to swim in the pool with his friends, and he was forced to sit outside of the pool’s gate and watch. Eventually, the boy’s friends convince the worker at the pool to let him in the pool. The workers then clear the entire pool out and make the boy lay on a float so that he cannot touch the water, because if he touches the water they would have to drain the entire pool.
Despite the film’s serious depictions of racism and murder, this story had some very odd aspects – including a scene where “Parks and Rec” star, Nick Offerman, shows up as a plumber in a MAGA hat. At first, he said there was no way he could fix her leakage problem, but after Wilkerson shows him kindness, he offers to fix the problem (aka do his job). This scene, presumably, was sort of an odd addition to show that POC should be kinder to Trump supporters, which just seems like an odd addition to a film about the treatment of Black Americans.
Wilkerson also compares American racism to the Untouchables in India. In Wilkerson’s book, she further touches on racism against the Untouchables.
“One afternoon, King and his wife journeyed to the southern tip of the country, to the city of Trivandrum in Kerala, and visited with high school students whose families had been Untouchables. The principal made the introduction. ‘Young people,’ he said, ‘I would like to present to you a fellow untouchable from the United States of America.’ King was floored. He had not expected that term to be applied to him. He had flown in from another continent, and had dined with the prime minister.”
When it comes to the production of the film, there sadly wasn’t much to it. The costume and makeup were at most average, and the entire film was quite blurry. The shots were often messy and shaky (which I assume was an artistic choice, but it was overdone and took away from the quality).
Although it was impressive that the writers shortened this story into a 2-hour long film, including many scenes from Wilkerson’s personal life, a non-fiction book rarely becomes a narrative film. I applaud the creators for bringing this story to the screen in a shortened and efficient manner. This film is a great introduction to caste systems worldwide but only scratches the surface of these ideas.
The relevance of caste lives on forever, especially with the current treatment of Palestinians. In the film, the Palestinians are even mentioned as “outcasts” in the context of caste systems.
It was a very inspiring film, and although it could have been made better, I enjoyed the film overall.
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