What if all systems of oppression follow the same blueprint? Director Ava DuVernay explores this question in her 2023 film “Origin,” based on journalist Isabel Wilkerson’s experience writing the New York Times bestseller “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.”
The film opens with the 2012 murder of unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida. We then meet Isabel Wilkerson (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor), who is coping with the loss of her husband Brett (Jon Bernthal) and mother Ruby (Emily Yancy). Initially, the connection between her life and Martin’s killing is not obvious, but Martin’s story becomes the catalyst for Isabel’s navigation of grief and the systems that perpetuate oppression globally.
Isabel sets out on a journey to explore race and what she argues is the more profound issue beneath it: caste. The film defines caste as the placing of one group above another in a hierarchy based on superficial differences. People like Isabel’s cousin Marion (Niecy Nash-Betts) question the connections between caste and race, but Isabel remains undeterred.
The film examines different cases of caste-based oppression across countries and time periods. We see two couples in Nazi Germany: The first consists of Black American anthropologists Allison and Elizabeth Davis, who fled their studies at the University of Berlin when Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, while former Nazi member August Landmesser and his Jewish wife Irma Eckler make up the second. We also see the stories of underappreciated figures like Indian professor Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, a member of the historically marginalized Dalit caste, and Al Bright, a young Black boy who was denied access to an Ohio public pool in 1951.
In “Origin,” everything is connected: hierarchy, terror and the inescapable nature of who we are, along with how caste manifests in cultures around the world. A relationship between Dalits and the murder of a teenage boy might not be apparent, but we slowly uncover these links with Isabel, ultimately realizing that outcasts and cast-based discrimination exist everywhere.
The film truly reframes how you understand oppression. By dramatizing Isabel’s research, DuVernay dismantles the invisible architecture of caste. “Origin” places systems of subjugation in unexpected contexts, encouraging viewers to search for connections, to persevere when others doubt them and fight the hidden injustices of the world.
“Origin” is available to stream on Kanopy.
Off the Radar is a monthly column surveying overlooked films and shows available to students for free via NYU’s streaming partnerships.
Contact Alessa Alluin at [email protected].