As of the publication of this review, there are 119 Letterboxd reviews logged for Chloe Abrahams’ debut feature The Taste of Mango. In one capsule from June 2023, the author avoids synopsis and goes straight for the jugular, writing: “this story is too important for it to be produced like this. I was left feeling like the juvenile art school aesthetic cheapened the profoundly impactful relationships and experiences that these women shared.” Without context, this review leaves the reader hanging. The Taste of Mango is a documentary about Abrahams’ relationship with her mother, Rozana, and their complicated relationship with Jean, Abrahams’ grandmother from Sri Lanka. Over the course of five years, the director documents her relationship with both women through a combination of Sony HD Handycam footage and home movies. Through these mediums, Abrahams creates intimacy by combining handheld first-person interviews with stylized vignettes that serve as a form of therapeutic nonfiction. Given the amount of care and intention that goes into the film, The Taste of Mango is, quite distinctly, the opposite of juvenile.
Abrahams navigates her family’s domestic life throughout The Taste of Mango. She allows the camera to linger over her mother’s home in the UK, showing viewers a combination of family photos, unmade beds, and makeup routines. Through these handheld montages, a loving rapport between mother and daughter is established. They laugh easily in consonant agreement with one another, often locking eyes in a knowing fashion, but skeletons slowly emerge through visual disruptions. With Rozana, we learn that her trauma lies with her memories in Sri Lanka. During one scene, Rozana flips through a photo album from her adolescence. Some snapshots have been ripped in half, presumably by Rozana, who states that most of these were taken years before she was “beaten by her stepfather.”
Like the ripped photos, Rozana has removed her stepfather’s presence from her life, but his memory haunts the film. The motif of water quickly emerges, at first without obvious reason. Images of glowing beaches in Sri Lanka are quickly replaced by rainy England. Fish tanks, bath tubs, and rippling tides serve as subtle foreshadowing rather than filler. During a candid interview, Rozana reveals that she was sexually assaulted on the beach in Sri Lanka by a “strong man” who resembled her stepfather. Jean cried, but didn’t do anything about Rozana’s assault for “her own good.” This, along with Jean’s marriage of 40 years to her stepfather and other instances of SA, led to Rozana’s ultimate estrangement from her mother.
Despite the film’s emphasis on intergenerational trauma, Abrahams disarms everyone with her cheerful demeanor. She intentionally overuses the zoom function on her Sony camera like a child and focuses conversations around romantic love and relationships. Her playful energy sets the film’s tone, even if it’s ephemeral. For example, at one point, Jean is inexplicably wearing a hot pink wig when she reveals that she hasn’t had any feelings of love or excitement since she was a teenager. Clearly shocked, the director continues probing when she asks her grandmother what it means to be in love. Avoiding the camera’s gaze, Jean laughs to herself: “I have forgotten the feeling.”
Abrahams never matches Rozana’s level of frustration with Jean, but she does get close. Jean’s confessions allow Abrahams to frame her grandmother in a new, empathetic light, but she often reminds us that she is a product of the “children should be seen not heard” generation, as well as patriarchy-deferring instincts. This is evident when she defends her husband’s prison sentence for pedophilia during Abrahams’ trip to Sri Lanka, saying many of his alleged victims were “frisky.” Abrahams shakes her head in disgust. This scene offers the clearest window into Rozana’s world growing up, one where she was silenced and blamed for her own abuse, but Abrahams also resists casting her grandmother as a villain. Rather than sitting in anger, Abrahams understands the futility of litigating her family’s troubled history. Antiquated country ballads like “Stand by your Man” by Tammy Wynette and “Can’t Help Falling in Love” by Elvis Presley reinforce this read with their not-so-subtle messages, reminding us that Jean’s decisions, disgusting though they may be from the present vantage, were made in the context of wider social norms.
Like Robert Greene’s Procession, The Taste of Mango is most notable for making a compelling argument for nonfiction cinema as therapy. However, in Abrahams’ film, the director remains front and center rather than functioning as an external participant holding a microphone. She works through her family’s shared trauma by way of the camera, and in doing so, provides a stage for not only Rozana and Jean to excavate the ills of their history, but establishes a powerful platform for her own voice as well.
DIRECTOR: Chloe Abrahams; DISTRIBUTOR: Oscilloscope Laboratories; IN THEATERS: December 4; RUNTIME: 1 hr. 15 min.
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