Words like 91裸聊视频渋mportant91裸聊视频� and 91裸聊视频渧ital91裸聊视频� are thrown around possibly a little too much in film criticism. It91裸聊视频檚 not that we don91裸聊视频檛 mean it 91裸聊视频� it91裸聊视频檚 just that sometimes we (ok, I) can get a bit excited.
And when watching and reviewing good films in real time, it91裸聊视频檚 impossible to know what is yet to come. Will there be something else that makes that superlative seem silly in retrospect? Often times, yes.
new film is that something else. It is a powerful and artistic interpretation of an academic book that was anything but an obvious candidate for a narrative feature.
The book in question is 91裸聊视频淐aste: The Origins of Our Discontents,91裸聊视频� in which offers an overriding theory about power and hierarchy and systemic dehumanization in social structures, connecting the Black experience in America to the Dalits of India and Jewish people in Nazi Germany.
The New York Times reviewer called it one of the most powerful non-fiction books he91裸聊视频檇 ever encountered and 91裸聊视频渢he keynote nonfiction book of the American century thus far.91裸聊视频�
That 91裸聊视频淐aste91裸聊视频� was appealing to DuVernay, who has made documentaries like 91裸聊视频�13th,91裸聊视频� connecting slavery to mass incarceration of Black men, is not surprising. What91裸聊视频檚 she91裸聊视频檚 done with it is.
Instead of rehashing the facts of the book, DuVernay has turned 91裸聊视频淐aste91裸聊视频� into an investigative, fictionalized drama in which we follow the character Isabel Wilkerson as she puts the pieces together while her life crumbles.
With an unconventional structure, in which we are often transported to different stories in different times, in the American South, Nazi Germany and early 20th century India, 91裸聊视频淥谤颈驳颈苍91裸聊视频� is nonetheless alarmingly effective, a riveting and haunting journey to a kind of enlightenment.
Wilkerson is played beautifully by Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, an actor deep enough to engage with the academic and intellectual inquiries of the film, and charismatic enough to make what sounds like homework absorbing. Hers is the kind of 360-degree Black woman that we don91裸聊视频檛 see leading films very often: She is at once confident and full of doubt and vulnerability, accomplished but searching, determined and still wary.
And she91裸聊视频檚 unafraid to pursue her hunch that everyone, civilians and book editors alike, seems to be telling her isn91裸聊视频檛 worth it.
This is a character who is surrounded by love when we meet her, with a fairly perfect and supportive husband (Jon Bernthal), her aging mother Ruby (Emily Yancy) and a cousin/confidant in Marion (Niecy Nash-Betts). She is not immediately interested in an assignment about Trayvon Martin, and is a bit stuck knowing that whatever she does, she91裸聊视频檒l have to give herself over fully to it.
In 91裸聊视频淥rigin,91裸聊视频� a push comes in the form of loss and her research takes on a vital urgency to, not to be too hyperbolic, figure out why everything is rotten before she too leaves the earth.
DuVernay takes us into her findings as Wilkerson learns about a group of Harvard students, two Black, two white, who integrate themselves into a segregated Southern community to study it, a Nazi party member who fell in love with a Jewish woman, and an Indian intellectual who rose out of his lowly caste and advocated for Dalit rights.
They feel a bit like different movies. But while it might not be the most elegantly stitched together anthology, it works on a gut level. DuVernay and Ellis-Taylor commit to the big swing, and audiences who give it a chance may find themselves changed 91裸聊视频� or at least a little more curious, a little more alert 91裸聊视频� because of it.
Is it premature to say that 91裸聊视频淥谤颈驳颈苍91裸聊视频� might just be DuVernay91裸聊视频檚 magnum opus? Well, perhaps. But hopefully it91裸聊视频檚 the start of a vibrant and bold new era of storytelling for her, with those pesky wrinkles in time firmly in the rearview mirror.
91裸聊视频淥rigin,91裸聊视频� a Neon release in theaters Friday, is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association for 91裸聊视频渟cenes of violence.91裸聊视频� Running time: 135 minutes. Three and a half stars out of four.
