Début film by Rebecca Hall (left), Passing, stars Tessa Thompson (centre) & Ruth Negga
A complex examination of race and sexuality set against the backdrop of a 1920s-era Harlem Renaissance that celebrated Black novelist Nella Larsen captured in her seminal 1929 novel, Passing, marks British actress Rebecca Hall’s assured feature directorial début — a certain 2022 Oscar contender, having taken New York by storm last month at their annual New York Film Festival, and already up for a passel of Gotham Awards — will be available on the Netflix streaming service this coming Wednesday, November 10th. “We’re all of us passing for something or other, aren’t we?” muses Tessa Thompson’s melancholy character, Irene Redfield.
Ms. Hall’s choice of material for her début as writer-director is elevated by her evident personal investment in the story, having learned years ago that her American maternal grandfather was Black passing as white for most of his life. That intense personal connection pervades every lovingly composed shot of a work that takes a subtle, unwavering approach to the film’s subject matter, that resonates at a moment Black Lives Matter has exposed the simmering racial divides within society.
The story takes place in 1929, as Harlem resident Irene (Thompson) carefully navigates her way through a sweltering New York City summer day, tucking her face inside her hat so as to all the better, well, maybe not hide exactly, but at least obscure her face so that her black skin isn’t as evident to the privileged white locals surrounding her. Feeling self-conscious about being out of place, she’s shocked to run into Clare (Negga), a school friend with whom she had lost contact, now married to a wealthy (and avowedly racist) white man, John (Alexander Skarsgård), who has no idea that his wife is black. Clare “passes” for white, allowing her entree into an upper-crust American society that contemptuously shuns people of colour.
Inviting Irene up to her hotel room, upon returning to her home, there’s a marked visual switch from Clare and John’s suite, an airy space drenched in white light, to the more textured look inside the Harlem brownstone where Irene lives with her doctor husband Brian (André Holland) and their two boys. The action flashes forward to the autumn, when a letter from Clare, postmarked New York, indicates she has moved back to the city as she had hoped. Irene is hesitant to open it, but Brian is more curious, arching his eyebrows at Clare’s florid description of “this pale life of mine,” as she gently chides Renie for exposing her “wild desire” for another life.
Shot in luminous black-and-white by cinematographer Eduard Grau (a choice that, given the material, might sound gimmicky, and is not), Ms. Hall also opted for a boxed-in 4:3 aspect ratio, all the better to heighten the film’s constant tension and the sense that its piercingly sad characters can’t escape the confines of their lives.
From the very first frame, Passing grabs your attention with its striking aesthetics. Most notably, as mentioned above, the desaturated black-and-white cinematography and 4:3 aspect ratio that recalls both vintage photography and classic cinema. The period-appropriate costumes and production design — stylishly rendered by the production designer Nora Mendism, and the costume designer Marci Rodgers — gives a strong sense of a time and place when flappers lived their best life. To add an elegant finishing touch, the intermittent piano refrain of Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou’s Homeless Wanderer, and the gorgeous score composed by Black composer Devonté Hynes, provides a further nostalgic nod to the Jazz Age.
Passing tingles through the vulnerability of Irene and Clare’s smallest gestures and experiences, delicately conveyed by Thompson and Negga and magnified by Eduard Grau’s judicious close-ups. A tear rolling down a cheek. The slight bow of a hatted head in the presence of a white man. A stolen glance of desire. Under the genteel mask these women show to the world lies a roiling unease about their true desires, their obvious and barely hidden secrets, and their place in the world.
And it’s through this discomfort that Passing transcends its mannered trappings to resonate with us as a poignant and powerful exploration of the human condition.