A Spellbinding Docudrama About Class

(062024) Origin is a bold, socially conscious, and intellectually challenging film indirectly about race in America and more directly about the larger caste systems in the world. The film was inspired by the bestselling book, Caste: The Contents of Our Discontents by Isabel Dickerson, but It is not in the strictest terms an adaptation. The main character in the film is the author, Dickerson herself and she is shown traveling through India, the southern U.S. and Germany to research her book.

The film features first rate performance by Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor (If Beale Street Could Talk, King Richard, and The Color Purple) as Dickerson. The supporting cast, all of which are effective in an understated way include Jon Bernthal (Walking Dead) as her husband. Here Bernthal plays opposite his Frank Castle role in The Punisher Netflix series. Additionally the film features Emily Yancy as her sick mom, Niecy Nash-Betts as Isabel’s cousin and Vera Ann Fermiga from Up in the Air. All turn in superlative performances.

The film and book compare the different rigid caste systems in the American south, India, and Nazi era Germany. Caste is the systemically placing of one group of people above another. The book argues that the Nazis modeled their system of racial separation after the one in the US’s south, but the caste system in India has lasted much longer than either one is still strongly in place.

The film was directed by Ava DuVerney who also did A Wrinkle in Time. Origin came about when Oprah Winfrey told the screenplay writer/director, Ava DuVerney to read Wilkerson’s book which was based on the thesis that all racism is rooted in caste, and the world’s different caste systems are often interrelated.

Like I said the book is in not strict terms a documentary: it is more of a docudrama. The film often quotes directly from the book and has sequences that illustrate the principles in the book in different real life historical situations.

There are many recurring images of falling leaves (there are more of them here than in the film Fallen Leaves). This may symbolically reflect the death of the main character’s husband (Brett as played by Jon Bernthal) who can also be seen as a beautiful leaf that fell too soon. The film has many glorious flashbacks which show the biracial couple in day-to-day activities in their almost perfect relationship. The flashbacks seem exaggerated (and he is romanticized) as if they were told from the point of video of a person who just lost someone who only remembers the selected best parts of the relationship which is appropriate.

The film uses the brutal Treyvon Martin killing as a starting point, then it jumps to 30s pre–Nazi Germany where Jews in a camp are getting their heads shaved by Nazis, than it goes to India where Saraj Yengde teaches her about the Dalit untouchables in India which draws comparison to Jim Crow and racism. The Dalits are so low on the societal totem pole that students are not even allowed to sit on desks in the classroom or touch books and they are referred to as untouchables.

This is linked to a scene in the 1950s where a person of color was not allowed to go into a pool with white people (he was put in a floating device when the coach complained.) The boss said if he went into the pool it would have to be disinfected. This shows that like the Dalits in India were both seen as untouchables.
Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor plays Isabel Dickerson, the ultra-earnest author of the book who was reluctantly tempted back into journalism when an editor dangles a tasty story morsel in front of her. The editor insists that Isabel listens to a tape of Trayvon Martin’s (portrayed here by Myles Frost) murder. She comes to realize as she listens that the case is not just about race, but it falls into a larger pattern of international social class division.

There is a really interesting scene in which a couple of color who are studying castes in Germany is in a house with a Jewish couple in Berlin. The Jewish woman is alarmed when she says that slavery in America was a genocide comparable to the mass murder of the Jews in Europe because we do not know how many people of color really died as a direct result of slavery. The Jewish woman protests saying the two events are not at all comparable because the killing of Jews was an end to itself not for commerce like the slave deaths, but Dickerson is put off because she mistakenly thinks that the German woman wants to minimize the effects or tragedy of slavery. The scene which is unlike any other in recent film captures perfectly how easy it is for friends to misunderstand each other when they are talking about sensitive issues.

Except for the classic Night John, it is hard to think of a film better much suited for a social studies class or a cultural anthropology class. There was even a special deal in which people who really love the film can gift their friends a ticket. Unfortunately, even the inventive marketing was not enough to draw many people to see what I thought was one of of the best films of the year. I am glad that it is getting a second shot.

Although it was released late last year in some places it opened only in the Chicago area early in 2024 and it is scheduled to come back to the big screens at some suburban theaters including Crestwood on June 19 and it should not be missed. Hopefully, the film which has done mediocre business at the box office so far will eventually get some of the exposure it deserves. This is surely one of the most thoughtful, compelling, and best written films about civil rights related issues since Judas and the Black Messiah, and it would be a near tragedy if it were permanently overlooked or lost in the shuffle.