First Look 2023: The Taste Of Mango

March 17, 2023. St. Patrick's Day. We got a chance to attend the First Look Festival at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens for the first time ever. The Taste of Mango was screening as part of a showcase that night. Chloe Abrahams who is director of The Taste of Mango(also her debut feature) brings the audience into her family primarily her mother and grandmother and the relationship differs between them all. Throughout the film you get a sense that grandmom and mom do not get along and we find out the reason why: it has to do with the stepfather. The relationship becomes more strained as Chloe questions her grandmother about her staying in such a tumultuous marriage and why she did not help her daughter during the marriage. The conversation between the three women is quite poignant as each comes to grip with their own troubles. Even though the director had a intention of making a love letter to her mom it evolved into much more. This is such vivid imagery and no men(done on purpose) you get a sense of compassion and guilt at the same time within the women as they process what they been through growing up as women in Sri Lanka and the UK. The Taste of Mango is a great interpretation of what one family can get through despite the generational gap and mistreatment by men closer to them. On a side note: the grandmother passed away a couple of days before this screening. We offer our condolences.