‘Nickel Boys’: Framing beauty in irreconcilable circumstances

Director RaMell Ross’ “Nickel Boys” has an intimacy to its photography that immerses you in the harrowing story adapted from Colson Whitehead’s acclaimed novel. Framed through a first-person perspective, the story of two Black teens attending a harsh reformatory school during the Jim Crow South is layered by cinematographer Jomo Fray in a “symbolically dense” palette so that the “images rhymed with other images in the piece.” The result? A camera language that Fray says “invites the viewer to almost project their mind into this movie.” The hurdle was finding evocative moments that break away from the first-person viewpoint. The fascinating thing about human life is it’s full of irreconcilable aspects, that despite the inhumanity of the system, and of the Jim Crow South, there’s still beauty.”