Origin

Heartbreaking and illuminating, all at once. You might think a movie about a more academic leaning book might be boring and dry, but this film is quite the opposite. It's full of emotion, as we get the story of Isabel Wilkerson's personal life and the trials she faced leading up to the publication of Caste, as well as reinactments of significant historical events that inspired the thesis.

Some parts of the movie lost my attention, but for the most part, I thought this was extremely well done. The acting was, all around, fantastic. The breakdown of the thesis at the core of the movie made sense, and the storytelling about the author herself kept the movie compelling.

I hope you leave the move also looking for ways to defy caste.

In February 2012 teenager Trayvon Martin was assaulted and killed on his way home from the convenience store because he looked suspicious. A black female author was asked to write an article, presumably to address what many considered simple racism, Martin was killed because he was black.

Instead she decided to look deeper, a lot deeper. Including traveling abroad. The research for her eventual book, upon which this movie is based, led her to examine the caste system which is present in many forms across many civilizations.

Definition: Caste - a social hierarchy that assigns a person or group a social class or standing based on their ancestry and ideas of "purity" and "pollution". It's a traditional practice that's rooted in the political, social, cultural, and economic structures of some religions or cultures. In Hinduism, castes are hereditary social classes that limit the occupations of their members and their interactions with other castes.

Clearly this does not separate people by race or skin color but by long-standing prejudices. In the USA the caste system assigned blacks, most of whom are direct descendants of slaves, to a lower standing. Even in my own lifetime I recall businesses having a separate entrance for blacks, separate water fountains, separate schools, and many hotels prohibited blacks from staying there. In this movie an incident is depicted where a little league baseball team with only one black kid goes to a community pool to celebrate their victory and the black kid is not allowed to swim. The pool manager says something to the effect that if he were to jump in, the pool would have to be closed and disinfected.

A good bit of time is also spent in India where the caste system is still very strict and those in the lowest of the social order have to clean cesspools by hand and have no hope of ever rising above that.

A very interesting and thought-provoking movie. My wife and I watched it at home on DVD from our public library.

The movie deserves much credit for tackling a difficult and complex subject -- the role of race in relation to caste in subjugation and oppression.

The movie examines race in America and caste in India as well as the Holocaust in Germany. However, it fails to mention colonialism, which oppressed one half of the planet no less in the early years after World War 2. This is a serious omission.

Even during the discussion of caste in India, the colonial oppression of India by the British that lasted till 1947 is not addressed. And it might be added, the British took full advantage of the Caste system to consolidate their rule of the country.

The acting is all really quite adequate here, but it's not really that important to the fascinating underlying premiss that underpins the theory that race, in itself, might not be the reason for the hierarchical nature of a society that always manages to create sub-classes. Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor offers her own engaging perspective on author Isabel Wilkerson who is invited by a publisher to offer a more considered and less reactionary appraisal of race relations following the murder of a young black man who just happened to be in the wrong place (a white neighbourhood) at the wrong time. The audience know full well from the outset what has happened here, so that's not especially important to the plot either - it's her search for a rationale. That search attempts to draw parallels between the plight of the African American citizenry with the victims of Holocaust and of the system of caste that prevails in India. By spending a section of the film in Germany and then in India, we are exposed to a more internationalist view of just why society is made up of the have lots, the haves and the have nots - and at just how little much of that has changed for centuries. The comparison she develops works surprisingly convincingly, if not without it's flaws, and Ellis-Taylor acts well as a sort of sponge for the philosophies that emerge. The one element that it rather studiously avoids is religion. That isolation does rather compromise the authenticity of any conclusion as it doesn't acknowledge that so often the behaviour and structures of cultures are dictated by those atop them in some form of priesthood - whether they be Brahmin or Cardinal. There are a few familial sub-plots to add a bit of drama to the story, but I found them a little unnecessary as the theory elaborates more. It does come from a very specific American perspective - I'd be interested to see how it might turn out if it were to be remade from a Jewish or Indian point of view, but as it is - it's a thoughtful exercise in what makes human strata function and endure.

This movie is beautiful and powerful. It is biopic about the author of the book Caste - which is a nonfiction book about the Caste system and how it is still used today to dehumanize and subjugate people. As she writes and researches the book she makes discoveries along the way as she makes trips to Germany and India to dig into the connections between slavery in America, the people once called the "Untouchables" in India, and the rise of the Nazi party in Germany. It is hard to watch sometimes because it isn't afraid to out the acts of injustice right in your face. Is it subtle? No. Is it half documentary - sometimes with people writing on white boards while reading you sections of a book - yes. It's not a regular "movie" - it's something different than what you're used to. But if you're not moved by it I don't know what's wrong with you. It's like a biopic crossed with a documentary that isn't afraid to feel or sympathize.