Caste Away

 

ORIGIN (C-minus) - Props to Ava Duvernay for thinking outside of the box and being ambitious. But this fictional interpretation of the crafting of a nonfiction book is an interesting idea that fails miserably on the screen. 

Based on writer Isabel Wilkerson and her book Caste, which recalculated traditional thinking on race and class, the film tags along as the fictionalized Wilkerson (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor from "King Richard") travels the globe -- to Germany, India and across the United States -- exploring the ideas of hierarchal cultural categorization. Aside from the visuals of such a travelogue, the grunt work of researching a book never really jumps off the big screen. Attempts to rope in real-life current events feel forced -- the film starts with a re-enactment of the shooting of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman, and Wilkerson awkwardly interacts with a plumber wearing a MAGA hat (Nick Offerman) at her house.

The dramatic hitch comes from the fact that Wilkerson suffers, in quick succession, the deaths of her mother and her husband (plus a cousin (Niecy Nash) is seriously ill), which, rather than create some dramatic tension, casts a pall over the proceedings. Next stop: research into Nazi Germany! We get sepia-toned flashbacks to a couple in the 1930s, a gentile man in love with a Jewish woman, and there is just nothing particularly fresh to convey about such forbidden romance amid horrors. Too often this one feels like Holocaust porn or similar wallowing in the history of lynching. (Wilkerson was influenced by a 1941 sociological study of "caste and class" in the Deep South at that time, penned by a couple whose story is also told in grim flashback.)

She eventually sets out to study untouchables in India, where Duvernay's palette brightens, but the dialogue remains stiff and academic. By the time we hear a droning lecture on endogamy (marrying within your own group), I was tempted to shout at the screen, begging for a in-depth documentary rather than this 141-minute gloss across one writer's serendipitous world. 

SAINT OMER (C-minus) - Stilted does not begin to describe this melancholy drama about the trial of an immigrant woman who killed her six-month-old child while battling long-term depression. Most of the film literally consists of dry testimony in a French court.

 

The hook here is a shared focus on not just the accused but also on Rama (Kayije Kagame), a professor and novelist who is drawn to the woman's narrative and attends the trial. Rama, who happens to look like a model, wants to parallel this tragic story of Laurence Coly (a placid Guslagie Malanda) with the myth of Medea. But she doesn't do much more than sit in the gallery brooding as she, like us, endures the droning court proceedings.

We are allowed some fresh air at times -- domestic scenes between Rama and her husband and family, and between Rama and the accused's mother -- but even those scenes are lethargic and obtuse. Alice Diop (the documentary "We") has a heavy hand with both the script (along with two co-writers) and behind the camera. Colors are muted. And these court scenes stretch out for 20 minutes at a time. Rama's scenes outside the courtroom are often wordless. At one point she takes out her recorder to replay some of the testimony that we've already sat through. It's just too much to take over 2 hours 2 minutes in running time. 

From flashbacks we can see from Rama's childhood that she herself has some mommy issues, and through scenes depicting her romantic relationship, she might also have some motherhood issues. None of this coalesces. Some of the court dialogue is somewhat enlightening, as it humanizes Laurence and allows her to tell her back story -- she had a tough mother, a sham of a marriage, mental health struggles. If only Diop had managed to tighten it and brighten it and given us something more complex than a mopey protagonist and a stone-faced antagonist.