Educational Media Reviews Online

Paul Lawrence Dunbar’s poem, “Compensation,” underscores the narrative of this production.

Because I have loved so deeply
Because I have loved so long
God in His great compassion
Gave me the gift of song. Because I have lived so vainly
and sung with such faltering breath
The Master, in infinite mercy
Offers the boon of death.

However, this time lined tale of an Afro-American couple with feet straddled in both the late nineteenth century and late twentieth century does not complement Dunbar’s song. Told through a combination of title cards, archival footage and photographs, Scott Joplinesque music, and American Sign Language, this story suffers from a trite plot and boilerplate denouement that is emotionally, intellectually, and artistically unsatisfying.

Malindy Brown is a woman of “much talent and ample learning” who attends the Kendall School for the Deaf in Chicago in 1893, before Afro-Americans are barred from it. She is also a seamstress and entrepreneur. We understand her intellect through her journal entries concerning the black Mississippian migration to Chicago at the turn of the century. She writes in her book: “The new immigrants from Mississippi are so full of hope, ambition,” but also that their “dreams will be shattered.” She meets Arthur Jones, a poor, illiterate migrant. He falls in love with her. Wary at first, Malindy teaches Arthur how to sign so that they can communicate with each other. He contracts tuberculosis, but does not inform her immediately. She is crestfallen and says that she will “never allow a hearing person to treat me like that.” Arthur delivers a letter written by his priest to Malindy and signs to her “I love you” in the final sequence.

Toggling this tale, we meet the same actors in the late 1990’s, who reinvent their forbearers’ love story. Malaika is a Tai Chi dancer and graphic artist who tells her admirer, Nico Jones, “I don’t go out with hearing people.” Nico is a children’s librarian at Chicago Public Library and like his counterpart, Arthur, learns ASL to get closer to Malaika. They begin a relationship, but Malaika does not want to have sex. She lies to Nico and tells him that she has a yeast infection. Later on, she writes to him and tells him the truth: she is HIV positive.

While the conflict between deaf and hearing cultures is prominent and essential to the meaning of Compensation, maudliness and predictability override what might have been a stronger and fuller production. Characters’ life-threatening illnesses against a rich historical backdrop chock full of the bias against both Afro-Americans and hearing-impaired amount to contrived formulae and are too easy for the viewer to accept. Unfortunately, the filmmaker did not think through her story enough, or else the characters would have resolved their problems in a much more original and creative way.