"Passing" provokes deep discussions at Film Group

Our most recent Film Group meeting centred on the quietly powerful film Passing, written and directed by Rebecca Hall and based on the 1929 novel by Nella Larsen. It was not, as Jane put it in her introduction, “a laugh-a-minute or a blockbuster,” but it sparked one of our most thoughtful and wide-ranging discussions to date.

What immediately strikes the viewer is the film’s visual style. Shot in black and white, it feels almost hypnotic — elegant, carefully composed and quietly intense. In a film that focuses on questions of race, the decision to remove colour is pointed.

The idea of “passing” was not familiar to some of us before watching the film – it refers to people of mixed race passing for white in response to racial prejudice and segregation, in this instance in 1920s USA. Hall is herself of mixed-race heritage, her parents being opera singer Maria Ewing and director Sir Peter Hall. By filming in black and white, she sidesteps the question of the actresses’ skin tone to focus on questions of identity and perception. She also used a 4:3 ratio (instead of today’s usual 16:9 widescreen), creating a boxy screen to mimic the cinematic style of the 1920s but also to evoke a sense of constraint and claustrophobia.

Passing is set during the era of the Harlem Renaissance — a period of extraordinary creativity in Black American culture, when Harlem’s clubs, music and literature were flourishing even while racial segregation remained deeply entrenched.

At its core, the film follows two mixed-race women whose lives have taken very different paths. Clare has chosen to “pass” as white and lives comfortably within white society, while Irene remains within the Black middle-class community of Harlem, presenting the image of a respectable doctor’s wife and mother.

The film’s narrative raises many questions without always offering clear answers — something that some viewers loved and others found frustrating. The motivations of the characters, particularly Irene, remain mysterious. Is she jealous of Clare, attracted to her, threatened by her – or all three?

Bill suggested that the film retained a novelistic structure, unfolding almost like chapters on a page. The visual style reinforces this: precise tracking shots were compared to the carriage return of a typewriter and the black-and-white cinematography to printed text on a page, while mirrors, shadows and unusual camera angles emphasise that everything is someone’s perspective and create a sense that Irene’s carefully constructed life is beginning to crack.

Discussion often returned to Irene. She appears determined to maintain the perfect façade with a successful husband, two sons and a well-ordered household. Yet the house scenes are frequently dim and enclosed, suggesting an underlying darkness, depression and anxiety. Small details reinforce this sense of strain: smoothing a bedspread, directing the maid, carefully arranging domestic life. Around her are symbols of things breaking – a cracked ceiling, a smashed teapot, a flowerpot that falls out of a window.

By contrast, Clare often appears in brighter or more open spaces. She steps outside of convention both metaphorically and literally, visualised by sitting on the stoop of Irene’s house to listen the jazz being played across the street.

This contrast plays into a claustrophobic element in the film. From early on, there’s a growing feeling that something terrible may happen, even though the story moves quietly and slowly. Time seems to stretch and contract, almost like a dream or a nightmare.

This tension culminates in the film’s ambiguous ending. Did Clare fall? Was she pushed? Was it suicide? Or something else entirely? The film offers no definitive answer and our group was divided on what really happened.

The discussion broadened into the wider historical moment. The 1920s were a time when complex racial laws existed across the United States, and “passing” carried enormous personal risk, as Irene repeatedly enforces. Social status, employment, safety and even survival could depend on how someone was perceived.

Adrian shared a personal memory from growing up in South Africa, where racial classifications were once enforced by law. In some notorious cases, tests such as placing a pencil in someone’s hair were used as crude measures of racial identity. Susie recalled working in the American civil rights movement during the 1960s, and the risks people took to participate in the struggle for equality.

These reflections made the film’s themes feel far from distant history.

Toward the end of our discussion, someone noted the film’s final images of fallen snow — an overwhelming whiteness – and reflected that after Clare has spent years giving up her identity to live within white society, in the end it is whiteness that consumes her.

Passing is a thoughtful, complex and beautifully crafted piece of cinema. Its costumes, production design and performances received particular praise, and many of us were intrigued enough to consider reading Larsen’s original novel to explore the characters further. Maybe one for the Book Club.

Above all, the film provoked conversation — about identity, belonging, history and the roles people feel compelled to play in society. And as one member highlighted: “We’re all passing for something”.