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By Andrea Thompson
“Compensation” is the kind of boldly independent experimental film that makes me rage and moan at the long and productive career of an artist that wasn’t. You’d think I would somehow find better ways at coping with this, but one of the most bittersweet experiences I have as a writer is to watch and appreciate a beautiful film like this...and to know that the director wasn’t given much opportunity afterwards.
It’s not that director Zeinabu irene Davis hasn’t done other things, both before and since. But they’ve been few and far between, and she has not been granted the creative opportunities she clearly earned. Seriously, how many more times must I mourn?
And this one feels more personal than most. The 1999 black and white film “Compensation” isn’t just a love letter to love, it’s an ode to Chicago, the city I reside in and one Davis clearly has a great affection for. It’s not just that the entire plot takes place there, it occurs during two different time periods, at the beginning and end of the twentieth century.
Both are seen through the eyes of two very different couples, and primarily follow two Black Deaf women, Malindy Brown and Malaika Brown, who find love with a hearing man, Arthur Jones and Nico Jones, respectively. Played by the same set of actors, Michelle A. Banks and John Earl Jelks, both find their romances in danger thanks to the diseases of the day, tuberculosis and AIDS.
For this unique love story, Davis doesn’t just make fun, creative considerations for the Deaf community with her use of Silent Era title cards and vintage photos, both of ordinary people and activists, she portrays her non-hearing characters with a sensitivity rarely seen. We see this community through the eyes of the people within it, not by how they’re perceived by those who can hear, which, as “Compensation” reminds us, isn’t always positive. If we may dislike that some of Malaika’s friends disapprove of her dating a hearing person, we mostly understand why they do, even as Nico treats her with loving kindness and respect.
There’s less understanding and time spent in the past, which fills a bit like filler as time goes on, since the objections more revolve around Arthur, a recent arrival from the South as part of the Great Migration, being beneath the more educated Malindy. So it’s hardly surprising that Malaika and Nico steal the show while giving us a fun view of Chicago and Black culture with humor and a great sense of the city’s rhythms, while also flipping the switch on a whole lot of romantic tropes.
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Contrary to the usual way of suffering, saintly women catching TB, it’s the hardworking Arthur in the past who catches the very non-romanticized disease, while, unlike the most cinematic portrayals of AIDS, it’s Malaika who is HIV positive. It’s rare enough to see films address women living with HIV, but it’s even rarer to see a Black woman do so, let alone a Black Deaf woman who is seen as a complex character rather than a suffering one-dimensional caricature who’s in need of saving.
That these women can’t always surmount the obstacles to their love is heartbreaking, but the most remarkable thing about “Compensation” is how love is always worth the risk, even if it may include a devastating fallout.
Compensation is streaming on The Criterion Channel.
