Origin

Origin starts with a reenactment of the final moments of Trayvon Martin’s life. This first scene cuts before his murder – it does play out later, in a very harrowing sequence that features the actual audio tapes of George Zimmerman’s 911 call – and moves shortly thereafter into several fascinating conversations about racism and what it actually means. This, apparently, was enough for some of the audience members in my screening, as several up and left within the first ten minutes. Of note was that everyone I saw leaving was white and of a certain age; I can only assume that an unflinching breach of one’s world view is enough to send some folks packing.

And that’s why we need movies like this.

The story here follows the real-life events that lead Isabel Wilkerson to write the best-selling nonfiction book Caste: The Origin of Our Discontent – among them, the murder of Trayvon Martin, and several personal tragedies. What’s really, very fascinating about this movie (and about the book) is that Wilkerson builds her case around a divisive and incredibly critical thesis. Her claim is that the Holocaust, the Indian caste system, and American racism are all related, and that “racism” is actually an inaccurate term for what Black Americans are up against. (This is an incredibly simplified statement of her thesis - please listen to some of her interviews on this.)

Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor plays Wilkerson here, and her stunning portrayal of Wilkerson’s personal tragedies is staggering. The film intercuts the biographical aspect of the story with her research and journey towards the publication of Caste. Taking us to The Middle Passage, 1940s Germany, 1950s America, and 1950s India as we see the actions and movements that inform and support her thesis, the movie does not just tell us what Wilkerson is discovering, but shows it to us. Often accompanied by Kristopher Bowers’ moving score and voiceovers of Ellis-Taylor delivering passages from the book, these scenes make everything that Wilkerson researched and wrote about leap to visceral, often terrible, life.

This movie is very heavy, but with that weight comes an accompanying impact. Ava DuVernay (the director of the film) hits hard and does not shy away from making us uncomfortable – as with Wilkerson’s original thesis, sometimes that discomfort feels intentional, challenging us to open our minds enough to envelop such a daring idea as this. I personally am still processing and attempting to understand everything that the movie and the book are saying; I certainly will be obtaining a copy of the book in short order. I think that this movie is a magnificent way to interact with these ideas, and it’s a brilliant way to bring the thesis to a broader audience – it’s an unfortunate truth that a 2-hour movie will likely reach a far larger audience than a book of any length.

This is a really stunning work that I will be thinking about for a while.

Origin is like looking at the instructions on how to build gallows so that we can dismantle it, take it apart, and tear it down.

As a white American male born into an upper middle class family, I don't feel comfortable analyzing this film because who am I to do that? What I can say is that, while I found watching the film to be a harrowing experience, many of the peoples addressed in this film find leaving their homes a harrowing experience.

Will this film solve that? Of course not, but this one and the next one and the one after that will slowly chip away at the mountain of oppression history has placed on them. While I'm often not a fan of films with a message, I'm fond of the message I found in this film.

[Note: I've read some compelling critiques of the caste theory presented in this film and by the woman this film is based on. While I'm no where near qualified to comment on that theory's validity, or lack thereof, I maintain that this patchwork movie encourages us to think about injustice and that's important enough for me.]

A good movie about racism that shows different aspects of racism in the world and discusses them pretty rationally for a Hollywood movie.
Even though they do not cover all of the subject (that is way to vast for even 10 movies), it encourages a serious discussion and shows some forms of racism that you might not immediately think or know about.
One reproach I give it though is that it kind of set tays racism against blacks people in the US at a same level as the holocaust in WW2, the Indian cast system and slavery in the US. Whereas the present situation for blacks in the US is for sure not ideal and even often bad, it is still very far away from the other 3 situations.
you should though. Watch this movie, even if it is not perfect, as it is one of the more intelligent ones on the subject, that is neither too woke nor too right wing. It manages to stoy more or less rational.

I had a lovely time watching this, I thoroughly enjoyed Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor's performance but unfortunately, there were plenty of moments that felt when it came to the emotional weight the main character was dealing with, just didn't hit as strongly for me. I do not know the book and have no interest in reading it so when it comes to the thesis being presented I am simply not intelligent enough to make a constructive comment. It's definitely 30 minutes too long and I kinda concluded that the material would have been more suited to a documentary-style film. The whole thing around what goes on in India to this day is something I didn't know which left me quite shocked.

I went into this movie completely blind, and I was surprised by how heavy the subject matter was. As a story and what really happened it all is very interesting and honestly one of the strongest aspects of this movie is that it taught me things that I never knew about India and left me thinking for about it for hours after it happened. This is a movie that made me want to look up more on the subject matter than any has in a long time. My only fault with the movie is that it felt a little preachy and sometimes when the emotional weight the main character is dealing with didn’t hit as strong for me. I don’t know if this is a movie I can watch again, but I’m glad I watched it this night.

This movie needed a rewrite and a better editor. It has major pacing problems, entire plots seem disjointed and all of the Trayvon Martin additions seem forced in a movie that already starts to drag.

I imagine the book is great, but this adaptation is somewhat middling.

Another issue with the rewriting is that the character timelines seemingly don't add up - they seem to play fast and loose in character backstories - which is more confusing when combined with the prominent use of a Blackberry in the "present"

Yet another movie about racism, with some good ideas, but lengthy and not always coherent.