Passing review, Culture Whisper
For Rebecca Hall’s directorial debut Passing (based on Nella Larsen's 1929 novella), the cinematographer Eduard Grau (Boy Erased) uses high-contrast, black-and-white visuals. The shots are sharply cut and packed into a tight 4:3 frame, nostalgic for the glamorous borders of Classic Hollywood. They harmonise perfectly with the film’s story around racial ‘passing’, among other struggles for identity in 1920s New York.
Passing is when light-skinned people of colour are perceived as white. In this time and place, it’s a useful tool but comes with its own curses. As the quiet and vaguely introverted Irene (played with anxious precision by Tessa Thompson) knows well.
She can walk through a white and wealthy neighbourhood without being oppressed. She can enter a posh, alabaster restaurant and watch others without being seen. As a woman of colour, passing is like a power – despite her later insistence that she only uses it ‘for convenience, occasionally’.
