Ava DuVernay's latest film, "Origin," does a couple of different things simultaneously. It's a dramatization of the writing of Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, a non-fiction book about the global systems of social stratification, by journalist Isabel Wilkerson. It also dramatizes and discusses parts of the book itself, including examples of the "pillars of caste" in action.
Wilkerson is played by Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, who starts exploring caste as a major component of bigotry after the death of Trayvon Martin (Myles Frost). As Wilkerson travels around the globe for research, deals with tragedies involving her mother (Emilly Yancy) and husband Brett (Jon Bernthal), her story is intercut with the stories of some of the people she's writing about. A team of researchers infiltrate and study the segregated American South. A German man and Jewish woman fall in love during WWII, but their attempts to be together are thwarted by the Nazi regime. B.R. Ambedkar (Gaurav J. Pathania), born in the lowest caste of Indian society, the Dalits, rises to become an outspoken social reformer and political leader.
The film jumps around in time and space, covering hundreds of years of human history across multiple continents. At the same time, "Origin" feels like a very current, very personal story. Caste was only published in 2020, and DuVernay's depiction of its creation feels very much like an attempt to make sense of current society through a different sociological lens than the default narratives we're more familiar with. A major point that Wilkerson wants to get across is that racism isn't the determining factor in bigotry and social division. The same attitudes and behaviors occur in societies where people share the same language and skin color. Most of her work is about finding the patterns and connections across different cultures. The film is very much a process story, where Wilkerson refines and gathers evidence for her thesis over many years. There are trips to Germany and India, meetings with scholars - at least one of whom plays himself in the film - and lots and lots of discussion of class, caste, and society.
"Origin" ends up being part documentary and part biopic, and I think that the two sides of the film help one another. Watching Wilkerson deal with her grief and frustration in the present day helps to show the impact of the continuing legacy of social castes she's studying, raising the stakes. Politics mostly takes a back seat, but there is a pointed scene where Wilkerson has an interaction with a MAGA plumber, played by Nick Offerman, that makes the film's position very clear. There are very strong calls to action in the concluding statements from the end of the book, along with a very unsubtle metaphor with Isabel restoring an inherited house to order. And, of course, the whole film is framed by the death of Trayvon Martin, a symbol for the continuing social injustice that we still see every day.
And on the other hand, the historical recreations give so much more scope to the film, weaving in these different, exciting vignettes from history. There are some genuine thrills to be had from the WWII and Jim Crow sequences, and some very brave people get some well deserved time in the spotlight. The strongest aspect of the film may be the editing, which creates the right balance between the more scholarly parts of the film and Wilkerson's personal story, while gradually building toward the final thesis. I can understand the argument that "Origin," should have simply been a documentary, but then we'd lose the passionate, invigorating performance of Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, which would be a tragedy.
Along with "American Fiction" last year, I'm glad that we've been getting some different, more ambitious films about the African-American condition. I wish I'd seen "Origin" earlier, because it helps to explain and contextualize some of my frustrations about other films in this vein. Duvernay's film is such a departure from mainstream filmmaking, it doesn't surprise me that it got no awards attention, and many in the film community didn't know what to do with it. However, that doesn't make it any less of a filmmaking achievement.
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