Compensation

If I watch another neglected film that just so happens to be directed by a brilliant fucking black woman, you bitches are gonna find me with my brains blown out.  A film about two deaf Black women from different generations finding love, Compensation stands as one of the few pieces of disabled cinema that has really and truly connected to me. If to love is to understand one another in such a manner that pierces through language, then how is love redefined within the barriers of language? What does it mean to connect to someone when your life has developed around the fundamental disconnect towards the people who surround you?  I ain’t deaf, but I’m mute. I grew up with ASL. I grew up with the same disconnect—whether that was linguistic, physical, and/or political. If I’m being honest, I never even thought about romantic love growing up, despite finding magic in the stories. I tried my best to participate, but that disconnect still stood. Shit conditioned something inside me. A talented, disabled body so deeply aware of her own inferiority and the disconnect present. It just wasn’t in the cards. Despite this, I’m human. Turns out that I’m more romantic than I thought. These emotions implode inside of my silence. Still, I don’t really know how to properly… express them…. But these emotions of love are… intense. I’m kinda just rambling. This movie… was special to me. I highly recommend that y’all check it out. I’ve already pre-ordered the criterion disk. I didn’t even mention the actual filmmaking decisions. That train track visual around the 1:10 mark was like… an image that has been trapped in my motherfucking spirit. Cinema belongs to the people. If the people ain’t leading the camera, then we all have fallen blind.  There’s so much I want to say. Maybe when I rewatch it in August after the disk comes. Nevertheless, this is cinema in its purest form. That I truly believe.