Passing (Rebecca Hall, 2021) Tessa Thompson, Ruth Negga; Netflix
This is so cinematic that it's not entirely inaccurate to classify it as an 'art film'. Critics have a lot to say about the story because race ('passing' = 'passing for white') is still a touchy subject in the USA. But after about halfway through I realised that I should be paying less attention to that and more to the cinematography, lighting, editing, music, and design, as well as the delicacy of the acting. Very little happens, and so subtly that it hardly matters. There is one major event, but the circumstances of that are almost beside the point.
The film is shot in black and white (!) and the academy ratio (4:3), appropriate for the period, the 1920s. (The film is based on a 1929 novel by Nella Larsen.) The story is opened and closed and punctuated by nebulous atmospheric shots in shades of grey (!) not containing people and accompanied by music of indeterminate character.
Critics mostly concentrated (in addition to the story) on the acting, especially that of Ruth Negga (which I personally did not think was one of the movie's strengths).
Manohla Dargis at the NYT spent paragraph after paragraph telling us every detail of the story.
Slant's Chris Barsanti's brief piece praises the subtlety of the writing: "Hall’s screenplay mostly avoids over-simplifying the conundrums that its characters find themselves in".
Tilt Magazine's Stephen Silver thought it a bit slow: "Passing is poignant, beautiful, well-acted, and tragic, and suggests great promise for Rebecca Hall as a director. It’s just a little too inert to reach its full potential."
Peter Bradshaw at The Guardian thought it stylish: "The drama unfolds in a hypnotic and dreamlike state, an almost Lynchian swoon, with ambient sounds and eerie piano music swarming up from unknowable depths. It is shot in a crisp monochrome which elegantly finesses the issue of skin colour: finally, an increasing swirl of chilly snow from the night sky will turn the screen white."
The most thoughtful review is from Kelli Weston at Sight and Sound, and I suggest you read it all (after you've seen the film) – so don't read on unless you have:
"One problem with Passing is that Thompson and Negga – both biracial – do not quite pass, if only because we are so extra-textually aware of them as actresses. Negga, in particular, is saddled with a distracting blonde wig and bleached eyebrows. The black-and-white photography, far from a purely symbolic or stylistic choice, obscures what would look preposterous in colour. It would have been far more effective to leave Negga, like Thompson, without all these trappings; but in drawing attention to her ‘whiteness’ the film loses something fundamental about passing as white – that mask of invisibility – and leaves the very lines it should be troubling intact."
Garry Gillard | reviews | New: 28 February, 2022 | Now: 16 December, 2023