Stikingly beautiful, distractingly so at times. Even the choice of film stock one uses is an ideologically-charged decision. Lots of fluid dissolves, lack of clear cause and effect in the editing between various times and places. Kind of like looking at a pile of photos or through a family album. Dash does not dilute the Gullah dialect to make the audience more comfortable, providing subtitles only at moments of extreme dialect.
Characters frequently strike tableaux-esque poses.
Brilliant white costumes. As a result the viewer must try to imagine or reconstruct the past and the various relationships, etc. The film doesn't provide any nice, clean, easily recognized exposition. I haven't seen you since we got divorced three years ago because I fired your brother, Fredrick, from my law firm for embezzelling 4 million dollars, which he hid somewhere and which has never been found. And as you know, my brother died in prison before telling anyone where the money was.