Ava DuVernay’s return to feature filmmaking doubles as a thematic homecoming. Origin, loosely adapted from Isabel Wilkerson’s tome Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, is, at its core, a deeply sincere story of love and grief.
DuVernay’s interest in animating the inner lives of Black women stretches back to her feature debut, I Will Follow, in which she explored the contours of a young woman’s heartache after the death of her aunt. She built on it with Middle of Nowhere, a remarkable second feature about a nurse confronting her relationship with her incarcerated husband. And although Selma is about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the film complicates Coretta (Carmen Ejogo), positioning her as King’s strategic co-conspirator instead of just a dutiful wife. In all of these films, DuVernay centers the emotional landscape of Black women, reflecting on how interpersonal and structural constrictions shape their behaviors.
DuVernay’s interest in animating the inner lives of Black women stretches back to her feature debut, I Will Follow, in which she explored the contours of a young woman’s heartache after the death of her aunt. She built on it with Middle of Nowhere, a remarkable second feature about a nurse confronting her relationship with her incarcerated husband. And although Selma is about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the film complicates Coretta (Carmen Ejogo), positioning her as King’s strategic co-conspirator instead of just a dutiful wife. In all of these films, DuVernay centers the emotional landscape of Black women, reflecting on how interpersonal and structural constrictions shape their behaviors.
- 9/6/2023
- by Lovia Gyarkye
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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