Non-fiction adaptations can be notoriously difficult to get right. There are real people, real events, and real politics involved which all have to be navigated, and a distillation process to ensure the story can be told as concisely as a feature film runtime will allow. It is even more difficult, then, to adapt a non-fiction book which does not have a conventional narrative.
That is what Ava DuVernay does here, adapting Isabel Wilkerson‘s award winning best seller Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents into a feature which somehow manages to distil the core ideas of the book while presenting a narrative which puts Wilkerson herself at the centre. DuVernay does so by creating a fusion of dramatization and documentary which works in tandem, in fact Origin‘s denouement is almost entirely given over to an explanation of Wilkerson’s theories and the implications therein. Although constrained by its runtime, Origin still manages to evince its theories in an easily digestible way without becoming overly didactic, although DuVernay‘s signature sentimental flourishes do come to the fore.
Racism vs Caste
Origin begins with a recreation of the tragic death of Trayvon Martin, a young black man in the wrong place at the wrong time, murdered by George Zimmerman, an American of Peruvian descent. While America reels at the senseless death, Wilkerson herself (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) is puzzled at the notion of an Hispanic male murdering a black male. This is the impetus for her theory that deaths such as Martin’s are not, in fact, racially motivated by rather motivated by an ingrained caste system. She begins to develop this idea as her own personal life is beset by tragedy; first losing her husband Brett (Jon Bernthal), then her mother Ruby (Emily Yancy). Deep in the midst of her own grief, Wilkerson travels first to Berlin to learn about the Holocaust, and then to India to research the lowest caste group in that country known as the Dalits, or “the untouchables”. What she finds forms the backbone of her theory, expounded upon in great detail in her work Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.
One wonders at how difficult it may have been to get the balance right for Origin. Wilkerson’s own life story could have merited a movie of its own – two tragedies in such a short space of time, a woman trying to adapt to her new life, questioning her value in an America ever more racially divided – but the real meat here is the theories which DuVernay manages to convey through the structure of several vignettes of past lives, and ensuring both Wilkerson’s life and these vignettes can co-exist together requires a deft hand. Luckily DuVernay has just that. Wilkerson’s narration of her discoveries take us from a cramped slave ship in the Middle Passage to a Berlin on the precipice of the Holocaust, to a small town in Alabama divided by Jim Crow, to the slums of India where, even today, a cruel system forces poor men into unspeakable tasks.
Pillars of Caste
Most of these vignettes are centred by individuals trying to navigate their troubled times: a young couple trying to flee Berlin because one of them is Jewish; a black couple and a white couple conspiring together to investigate Jim Crow laws; a young boy in New Delhi, forbidden to play with his classmates, rising to prominence as a beacon of hope for his people. Each of these people play just as much a part, or even more so, in Origin’s story as Wilkerson’s, and it’s to DuVernay‘s credit that she’s able to give each of these characters enough room to breathe and tell their story.
Central to Wilkerson’s theories are the eight pillars of caste: divine will, heritability, endogamy, purity and pollution, occupational hierarchy, dehumanisation and stigma, terror and cruelty, inherent superiority and inferiority of castes. DuVernay is unable to fully explore these pillars in the time allotted to her, instead the viewer must make do with a montage featuring Ellis-Taylor writing each of them on a whiteboard. There is unfortunately precious little time to investigate further.
Ellis-Taylor is excellent as Wilkerson, and displays a calm, intellectual rigour shaken by circumstances both personal and global. Wilkerson spends much of her time in deep grief, both for herself and for others and Ellis-Taylor captures the raw depths of this grief perfectly. Elsewhere, Niecy Nash plays the role of comic relief/sage advice giver in Wilkerson’s cousin Marion, herself dealing with tragedy. Nash is old hat at this sort of thing, but expertly balances humour and sadness in a compelling way.
Other cast members such as Jon Bernthal, Blair Underwood, Vera Farmigia, and Nick Offerman have little to do, although Offerman gets the role of the clunkiest thematic device – a plumber who turns up to Wilkerson’s house wearing a Make America Great Again hat which may as well have read I AM A RACIST instead. His scenes feel like they belong in a different movie with a less cogent narrative than this one.
Conclusion
It’s final moments are perhaps a touch too saccharine – although your milage may vary on this – and one or two moments land with a dull thud, but on the whole Origin is an incredible, and powerful, insight into a theory of human behaviour that is both fascinating and troubling. It is laden with hope, however, that our better angels will persevere, and perhaps in these times that’s exactly what we need.
Origin screened as part of the Glasgow Film Festival 2024
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