Watching Ava DuVernay’s ‘Origin’ This Juneteenth Holiday

Origin (2023), a biographical film drama based on Pulitzer Prize-winning Isabel Wilkerson’s book, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, is a thoughtful and honest portrayal of the global connections of oppression by way of the caste system. Emmy Award-winning producer and director Ava DuVernay offers this filmic connection through the lens of Isabel Wilkerson (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor), a Black renowned journalist and author who synchronously disassembles social containers in her romantic life and in the caste system by tracing the interconnections between African American people in the U.S., Jewish people in Nazi Germany, and Dalit people in India. Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor delivers a beautiful and empathetic performance as Isabel Wilkerson, while Ava DuVernay brings to life this significant research through cinematic intimacies with archives, memorials, statues, and ethnography. On this Juneteenth Day, Origin is a reminder that African American emancipation is linked to broader struggles for freedom that traverses both time and space.