‘The Taste of Mango’ Review: A Deeply Personal Exploration of Familial Trauma and Connection from First-Time Filmmaker Chloe Abrahams
Courtesy of Oscilloscope Laboratories
In recent years, British cinema has witnessed a spike of female filmmakers who are deeply in communication with their own lives and experiences through the work they create for the silver screen, most notably through Charlotte Wells’ Aftersun and Joanna Hogg’s last three movies. For her feature debut, The Taste of Mango, artist/filmmaker Chloe Abrahams throws her own name into this mix of significant female auteurs, delving into her own British/Sri Lankan origins to excavate the complicated relationships between the matriarchs of her own family, confronting the social and interpersonal conflicts that have shaped their perspectives of one another and–– just as crucially–– themselves. Richly capturing the textures and nuances of life and its, at times, damaging forces, The Taste of Mango is a subtly potent work of autobiography in which Abrahams and her family journey to heal and celebrate their connections to one another.
The Taste of Mango is an experimental mosaic of footage, interviews, and conversations between Abrahams, her mother, Rozana, and her maternal grandmother, Jean. Abrahams and Rozana reside in England, while Jean still lives in Sri Lanka but is preparing to visit her family for the first time in many years. With the director’s own voiceover guiding the audience through recollections of the childhood spent with her mother–– who primarily raised her alone–– the film builds priority around the closeness of their relationship while never disregarding the unspoken shielding barriers that eternally exist between children and their parents.
As the documentary progresses through interviews conducted with Rozana, she delves into the complicated relationship she has with Jean, mainly due to the abusive stepfather that Jean married during her daughter’s childhood back in Sri Lanka. While cultural and generational convictions keep Jean protective of her husband’s harmful actions, both Rozana and Abrahams grow disheartened by her old-fashioned ways. Gradually, the evolution of openness and communication The Taste of Mango builds itself around unveils connections between the trio of women that draw them closer together in manners they may have never anticipated, creating a potent vision of familial intimacy and feminine solidarity.
Courtesy of Oscilloscope Laboratories
Through her essayistic approach to The Taste of Mango, Abrahams reaches powerfully confessional heights, tenderly reflecting on her own life experiences and relating them to those of the matriarchs of her family. Mostly combining camcorder footage shot by the director in England and Sri Lanka with home video from her mother’s first wedding in the 1980s, the documentary takes on an unpretentious yet inventive visual language that reinforces the emotional peaks and valleys captured throughout the work. Despite its open, unconventional approach, utilizing footage Abrahams shot over five years, The Taste of Mango builds with a stirring strength as it slowly reveals information about its female subjects’ lives, both within the family unit and as individuals.
Abrahams’ debut feature works with a universality that speaks to the interiority of the nuanced relationships between parent and child but also exhibits a subjectivity that reflects her own family life and heritage. Abrahams faces the world with a contemporary understanding of it; her grandma lives within a more traditional frame of mind; her mother, Rozana, exists within the middle of these perspectives, toiling between the world she was raised in and the new life she has carved out in England. These differing outlooks contribute to showcasing the diasporic roots of the women and the ways they have shaped their cores. Through the documentary’s genuine intentions, the filmmaker concretizes ruminations on recollections and confrontations with her family with a delicate puissance that pushes the work into a deeply meaningful domain.
Courtesy of Oscilloscope Laboratories
With The Taste of Mango, Abrahams constructs a compelling and moving love letter to the women in her family and the strife they have faced. Complex in its approach to some of reality’s most difficult conversations, the director crafts the documentary with a sensitivity and intuition that reflects the profound love she feels for her family's matriarchs, as well as a showcase for her promising talent as a filmmaker on the rise.
4/5
2023 | 75 minutes | Color | English
‘The Taste of Mango’ made its world premiere in 2023 at True/False Film Festival before going on to win Best Debut Director – Feature Documentary at the British Independent Film Awards. The documentary will begin its theatrical release in the United States on Wednesday, December 4, in New York City. Click here for more information about ‘The Taste of Mango.’