I like that Residue is a protest film that dothn’t protest too much. Jay (Obinna Nwachukwu) is a young filmmaker who returns home after many years away to write a screenplay about his childhood, only to find his neighborhood unrecognizable.
By the same token, he’s practically a stranger to his former friends and possibly even his parents. Jay’s lost childhood is symbolized by his former best friend Demetrius, whom he keeps asking about throughout the film only to receive evasive, hostile answers. The editing, fragmented but not disjointed, contributes to Jay’s sense of disorientation.
Writer/director Merawi Gerima is firmly against gentrification, but Residue is not arousing call to arms so much as a purely subjective, individualistic record of his displeasure. As a twofold document of Gerima’s personal opinion and filmmaking prowess, the movie is flawless — as viscerally artistic as it is cerebrally technical.
It’s worth noting that Jay claims that his film will give a voice to the voiceless, something that Gerima’s fails to do (it’s safe to say that, if Jay is a fictionalized Gerima, Residue is pretty much what Jay’s film would look like).Whoever has been displaced isn’t around to complain, and those who remain don’t seem to share Jay’s outrage — quite the contrary; they see Jay as a defector, and Jay himself is conscious that he isn’t back to stay. Ironically, the least affected by the phenomenon is the only one makes a big deal about it (whether he has a right into is another matter entirely).
All things considered, it’s possible that Jay’s restlessness has a much deeper, metaphysical source (Nwachukwu plays him, quite rightly, as a surly, bitter, malcontent young man; the kind who can’t wait to get out of the ghetto, but is disappointed when the ghetto isn’t there waiting for him). Residue may not turn the tide against gentrification, but one hopes it was good for exorcising a few personal demons
