I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with LA Rebellion, a radical filmmaking movement of the 60s that shaped Afrofuturism in films. Filmmakers like Alile Sharon Larkin,Billy Woodberry, Jamaa Fanaka, Larry Clark, Charles Burnett, Ben Caldwell, Julie Dash, Haile Gerima, Carroll Parrott Blue and Barbara McCullough created huge impact with their anything-goes political & radical films.
I've seen few critics ignoring Zeinabu Irene Davis's contribution in comparison with others. I have wondered it might be due to her late start. For me, her feature debut Compensation (1999) is one of the finest key works to emerge from the movement followed by Haile Gerima's Bush Mama (1979). Zeinabu Irene Davis's "Compensation" is nothing short of poetic. From beginning to end this movie flows so smoothly, yet feels so complex. The chemistry between the characters is beautifully rendered and visualized.
Coming to the plot, it is Inspired by a 1906 poem from early African American writer, Paul Laurence Dunbar, the film narrates the life of a deaf African American woman in the early 1900s and it parallels with another living in the 1990s. It stars Michelle A. Banks and John Earl Jelks each playing a dual role. The story is told through two sequential lines interspersed in the style of early 20th century pictures. I read that Davis made changes in the story when she got to know that the actress happened to be Deaf in real life.
This film could have been a bad experience all around. But i'm glad that the narrative didn't linger more on the feminist side or to a watered-down metaphor for racism. But Davis manages not to give in or fall for it. She has that sensitivity and empathizes in the visual language and the psychology of the characters is offered as the plot progresses. Davis delineates her characters with an existential development that presents them incomplete with realism. This film achieves something that very few films I've ever seen has done with a small cast filled with emotions. A must see!
