With Nickel Boys, director RaMell Ross creates a new cinematic language for first-person POV.
One that demands empathy from the viewer.
It is broadcast on a stack of televisions in a storefront window.
Rather its because director RaMell Ross uses first person perspective almost exclusively inNickel Boys.
Jane Eyres passions are informed by her descriptions of Rochesters home.
Dostoyevskys Underground Man presents his Russian milieu as a reflection of his own impotence.
Humbert Humberts description of American motels in the travelogue section ofLolitaunderscores his broken moral compass.
Even worse are the movies that attempt sustained first-person POV for reasons other than unreliability.
Without question, some found footage movies have effective first-person POV.
And that makes Ross use of the technique inNickel Boysall the more astounding.
The boys meet while at lunch and, as usual, their first conversation plays out through Elwoods perspective.
Ross decision to replay the conversation isnt to reveal new information we may have missed.
Elwood doesnt become Elwood, not a full person, until someone else sees him and recognizes him.
Its not just that we finally see Ethan Herisses face.
Scenes with the adult Elwood dont come through his POV.
Rather the camera sits directly behind him as if the viewers constantly look over his shoulder.
Adult Elwood is desperate to tear down those lies and find more proof of what he knows.
The distance between the viewer and adult Elwood captures the distance audiences sometimes seek in depictions of real atrocities.
Throughout history, movies have given viewers outs to look away from racist atrocities.
But Ross never lets the movies technical aspects overshadow its people or their relationship to real suffering.
Nickel Boys is now playing in theaters across the U.S.
