"Dear White People" is dark, biting satire about young people coming to terms with their identities in a myriad of ways. A twist upon the usual frat hijinks of college-aged comedies, this debut from director Justin Simien manages to deftly create a film that's provocative, profound and particularly enjoyable, threading a needle that has foiled even veteran filmmakers.
With a stellar cast that delivers top-notch performances, this story is one of complexity and intelligence, facing head-on the ambivalent nature of having to conform to the expectations a community exerts on its own members, and the way that outsiders react to members of that community. It's heady stuff, to be sure, but done with a level of engagement that makes it terrific to watch.
The film took home the Dramatic Special Jury Award for Breakthrough Talent at the Sundance Film Festival last January, and finds its way to local screens this week. This is a smart and funny film, and one not to be missed.
Moviefone Canada had a chance to speak with Justin about this remarkable film.
Moviefone Canada: How has your experience with the film been since your big debut at Sundance?
Justin Simien: It's been a roller-coaster, I have to say. This is my first time through this particular meat grinder and it's just been very interesting. It's filled with really beautiful, poignant, fantastic moments. Usually I get to talk to people that were moved by the film. It occasionally has moments that are not so pleasant, when you run into people who did not get the film, or didn't see the film, or just are bucking at the title and everything that comes along with that.
We had a tremendously successful and long marketing campaign that I was involved in. It's all such a heady experience but ultimately, at the end of it, now that the film's in theatres at last, I just feel grateful that this was my first experience and that it turned out so well.
At its best, the film's about the true meaning of the term "diversity." That being said, is there something consistent to the people who haven't liked the film?
I think that what my film does is it allows you to have an experience. Leaving the film feeling perhaps a bit conflicted about yourself, about your own identity, about your place in the world or just an aspect of the human condition that you weren't aware of before. Often, I run into people who are in mid-process, and I don't think that's something people are used to with films about black topics, frankly. I think when you see movies about black characters that have artful ambitions, they tend to be about the tragedy of the black experience and you're supposed to feel bad about what happens to the black people. I think in my film, the emotion that it produces is a lot more complicated than that.
It's interesting because the people who really love the film [do so] for all kinds of reasons. I think part of that is because it is a multi-protagonist story and you do latch on to one or two of the characters over the others. That has been very diverse across the board, [the question of] who people think the movie is about. That's very interesting for me.
One of my favourite reactions is a girl who really had a problem with this character, Coco. She just really did not like the character, and then by the end of the film, she realized that she was that character! I just remember her coming up to me with tears in her eyes, and being very grateful that she had that complete experience and revelation while watching the film. I think that sometimes, it might take people a couple of days to process.
As a critic, it's one of those things that I get really irritated at people who like things for the wrong reasons. I know that sounds stupid, but people who look at "The Sopranos" as just a gangster show, I'm like, you're kind of missing the point here.
In that sort of way you ask for it with a movie like this, because some people come in thinking it's going to be a joke movie, or it's going to be some sort of racially charged anti-white or whatever, and those are the qualities that they walk away talking about. That can be frustrating too because for me, as the artist part of me, I made a movie about identity.
I made a movie about the difficulty in being yourself when your identity is much more important to your survival in a country where identity is everything. I love when people walk away from the film talking about that. It's nice when people like the film for other reasons, but I really especially love it when people see what the film's actually about and leave talking about it.
Clearly, you must get asked a lot about how autobiographical the film is.
What I like to say is that there's autobiographical elements threaded into the film. I like saying that because the film really has gone through quite a process in terms of constructing the narrative, and I think that there's probably as much autobiography in this film as there would be in any film that I make, because ultimately I'm the main resource for anything that I write.
I went to college, I am a black person, and I went to predominantly white schools. So I've accumulated a ton of experiences in that regard that have found their way into the film.
Are your references primarily cinematic? Is that what you draw upon, or do you draw upon literature, other elements?
For this film, at least in the way I told the story, it was primarily cinematic, but when it came to the writing, there was a great deal of reading that I did, particularly non-fiction pieces like "Who's Afraid of Post-Blackness" [by Touré], it's a great book about the new black experience in America. A book called "Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria" [by Beverly Talum], a book by Baratunde Thurston called "How to Be Black."
[These are about] the experience of trying from a psychological and anecdotal standpoint articulate the experience of being a person of colour in a world of people that are not of colour. Those certainly had an influence on the way the story was constructed. I'm saying in the way they were shot and the way I approached telling the story, yeah, I'd say most of the influences were cinematic.
You've been inundated after Sundance with opportunities and other things. How much of a challenge is it to think about what the next project is going to be, and do you feel an obligation to continue in this line of doing personal films?
Yeah, it is tricky. At the end of the day, I just like movies. I love the idea of the auteur, but I also love the idea of making a big commercial movie. I'm just a fan of all kinds of storytelling. I think the way I'm handling it so far is that I've got a personal, I guess you could call it, story that I'm writing now that I'd love to direct. I'm also attached to a studio project that hopefully all goes well and I'll get to direct that.
I'm considering screenplays that I didn't write because I personally find a thrill in just telling the story and not coming up with it, but just relaying it as a director. For now I definitely can't tell a story that I don't personally connect to. I hope that I can keep making films that matter and keep making movies that leave people feeling a little conflicted at the end of it. Those are the movies I love and the filmmakers that I love do that almost every time.
Have you been at any screenings outside of the States, and what was that experience like, a non-American audience taking in this film?
One that was relayed to me that happened the week we opened in America, which I why I wasn't able to go to it was the BFI screening in London. The response to that was quite remarkable, from what I understand. There was a standing ovation, and this petition online to get a third screening added that resulted in a third screening being added, resulting in more petitions for more screenings. So far it seems like it's going well.
I will have my first experience with that later this month when we show at the Stockholm Film Festival. So I'm very curious, as I think anyone would be, as to how a film like this plays to non-American audiences, but I'm hopeful because at the end of the day I made a story about the human condition, I made it through the lens of being a black American, but the aim is to talk about something that we all deal with.
"Dear White People" opens in select Canadian theatres on November 7.
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