Movie info via Sundance:
Utilizing his paintings to find freedom from his past, a Black artist on the path to success is derailed by an unexpected visit from his estranged father, a recovering addict desperate to reconcile. Together, they learn that forgetting might be a greater challenge than forgiving.
This soulful, sophisticated, and beautifully crafted debut feature blossoms a hard-to-tell story about destructive parenting, the seasons of angst weathered by an abused child becoming a successful human being, and the deep meaning and salve of creative practice.
Oscar-shortlisted filmmaker and celebrated painter Titus Kaphar turns his attention again to cinema to innovate a fresh cinematic language that incorporates the language of paint and canvas to tells the story of Tarrell (André Holland), an art star reckoning with his own traumatic childhood by creating powerful and transcendent paintings.
At the radiant heart of Exhibiting Forgiveness is Tarell’s artistic process, which illuminates how a creative practice can redeem illnesses of the soul, forge pathways toward regaining power over one’s own destiny, and forgive and transform despite the spiritual damage.—SF
Review:
Titus Kaphar’s Exhibiting Forgiveness is true to its title. It shows the anger, tears, the hard work of crawling through the traumas of the past to a reconciliation of not only abuser but self. Here it’s a partial forgiveness, one for the past but not of the future, living within the cutout outlines of shadows that still exist.
Tarrell (Andre Holland) is an artist who paints bright pastel scenes that contrast sharply with the colors of his dark childhood memories. He is forced to reconnect with his once crack addicted and abusive father, La’Ron (John Earl Jelks) now
grey, wizened, clean and full of Jesus. The two have been estranged for 15 years. La’Ron seems to be on the last phase of step nine of the AA twelve steps— making direct amends to those he hurt. Terrell who still wants nothing to do with him, relents only to appease his mother. It comes as an interview as to why he became addicted and abusive.
La’Ron’s beginning story of the ultimate high is familiar to anyone who has watched addiction dramas. Jelks delivers it with a light in his eye and a jilt in his voice that delivers the still lingering emotional memory- and how in the retelling it becomes a roadblock to forgiveness for his very clean and very sober son. It’s odd that Tarrell misses the in between the lines metaphors- addiction as a prison sentence, the utter depths of despair that realization brings. This is a speech for the audience, a typical beginning writer’s mistake.
Eventually, after the death of the mother (the Jesus element) Terrell and La’Ron are left to rawly and honestly struggle the term of forgiveness for themselves. For Tarrell it can only be forgiveness for the past, the future will remain null and void. I suspect he can’t fully forgive his dad because he’s afraid that it will negatively affect his art. Without the range there is nothing for him to paint.
The ending is slightly hopeful. There is a hint that La’Ron will be able to have a relationship with his grandchildren. Maybe Tarrell could eventually work through the scabs of bitterness once they have become scars.
I liked how director Kaphar never undercuts the vitality of what Tarrell has achieved as an artist. We see the hard work, the revisions, thinking every emotional aspect through. Kaphar never denies Tarrell’s happiness, implying that happiness and a coexisting bitterness are essential to great art and the creative process. In a previous life Kaphar was a sculptor and artist, and that connection shows in Exhibiting Forgiveness.
Exhibiting Forgiveness gets a 3.5/5 or a B+.
It’s streaming as part of Sundance 2024 . The virtual part of the festival runs from January 25-28.
Credits:
- DIRECTOR(S)TITUS KAPHAR
- SCREENWRITERTITUS KAPHAR
- PRODUCERSTEPHANIE ALLAINDEREK CIANFRANCEJAMIE PATRICOFSEAN COTTONTITUS KAPHAR
- EXECUTIVE PRODUCERCLAIRE BROOKSSTEPHANIE BLACKWOODKIM COLEMANANDREW MANN
- CO-PRODUCERRACHEL HALILEJNATALIE RENEEMICHAEL VQ
- EDITORRON PATANE
- CINEMATOGRAPHERLACHLAN MILNE
- PRODUCTION DESIGNEROLIVIA PEEBLES
- COSTUME DESIGNERDEIRDRA ELIZABETH GOVAN
- COMPOSERJHEREK BISCHOFF
- MUSIC SUPERVISION BYSTEPHANIE DIAZ-MATOS
- POST-SUPERVISORMITCHELL GROBMAN
- PRINCIPAL CASTANDRÉ HOLLANDJOHN EARL JELKSANDRA DAYAUNJANUE ELLIS-TAYLOR
- YEAR2023
- CATEGORYFEATURE
- COUNTRYUNITED STATES
- LANGUAGEENGLISH
- RUN TIME117 MIN
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