Origin

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.

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.

Touching story but not really moved by the movie itself. Could be hard to watch for some. At the end of the day it was decent, I just think it was one of those movies that's more important than it's actually good. But because it's an important story people are gonna butter the movie up. Could've been a better as a documentary if you ask me.

The grainy sharp visual style, evoking an old movie feel despite its modern setting, wasn't to my liking. It's paced really slow and isn't engaging. It works on the assumption that you're already invested and care. It's like using puppy dog eyes. There are scenes that work but too few and too far apart especially in the first half of the movie; so the parts in between felt like a drag. There are few scenes and conversations that are memorable later on that make it worth a watch. But I doubt this is a movie you'd wanna see twice. The movie could benefit from fewer subplots, like the mother's, to maintain better focus. I think I'd have been invested more if it was paced quicker and had less things going on.

The biggest thing I learned about was the Indian dalits, called the untouchables, who're the lowest stratum of the castes in the India. The Jews, and African Americans in America. This isn't in the movie but Several scholars have drawn parallels between Dalits and the Burakumin of Japan, the Baekjeong of Korea, the Hukou system of China. I think learning about them was what made the movie interesting enough for me, otherwise if I had already known about them like I knew about Jews in Germany or blacks in America; I would've been even more bored.

I wish it was paced better, it felt much longer than it actually is. For a good chunk of the second half, it felt like a wait for the conclusion. It's a very heavy loaded film and leaves you with things to think about and some learnings. It's a thought-provoking experience but struggles to captivate, taking too long to get into its stride.

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.

Great movie but the author and/or director completely forgot or ignored the plight and treatment native Americans from them caste hypothesis/equation, Seriously!? Why?

I would think Native Americans should have given some sort acknowledgment from origin standpoint as they were first to be "casted" prior to African Americans.

I haven't read the book, but the movie does feel like abrupt in trying to connect and transition amongst different story lines or historical situations.

Then summarization in the end is just beautifully done. But movies felt too dense and compact in terms of content as the authors personal life events and challenges were being tried to intertwined hit socially and racial complexities.