12-year-old Zain (Zain Al Rafeea), formerly from the slums of Beirut, Lebanon, is in juvenile prison for five years for a stabbing. Nobody knows his exact date of birth because his parents never received a birth certificate. Sick of his whole predicament, Zain decades to take his parents (Zawthar Al Haddad and Fadi Kamel Youssef) to court for having and then neglecting him. As the trial starts, we then see, in flashback, just what his family situation was like only seven months beforehand: he was having to help raise his seven younger siblings who are all involved in various money-making schemes (chiefly involving drugs) instead of attending school, and he also works as a delivery boy for the family's landlord Assad (Nour el Husseini). Assad also about to become husband to Zain's 11-year-old sister Sahar (Cedra Izam), after her parents learn she can now fall pregnant because she's had her first period (something Zain failed to help her conceal). Infuriated about this, Zain then ran away from home and commits the stabbing.
This Oscar-nominated effort by Lebanese writer-director Nadine Labaki became the most lucrative Middle-Eastern film in history and received a 15-minute standing ovation at Cannes in 2018. I don't think it's nearly that impressive but even so, it engaged and stimulated me throughout. Capernaum, named for the city in Galilee that Jesus condemned for refusing to repent for its sins after He performed a miracle there, does what all dramatic non-English movies should do: provide a clear and insightful peek into life in an entirely different culture to your own, while still showing flickers of globally familiar things. Labaki's Beirut is rife with Islamic motifs and traditions but also hallmarks of Western culture, and of course devastating poverty. Her direction very lucidly and sympathetically sorts through this mess of a cultural melting pot to find and then focus on the human beings inhabiting it, and the screenplay very refreshingly makes these very damaged children talk and act very maturely; there's a great deal of swearing here. Al Rafeea was an illiterate, untrained performer before being cast here (the character was named for him) and yet he expresses just the right determined yet vulnerable and disaffected attitude in each scene to let the viewer connect with his delinquent character. All his co-stars hold their own, but he's the one who shines most. Capernaum is a very compelling snapshot of modern Lebanon, and a welcome and conscious contrast to views of the Middle East we're so often given in the media.
This Oscar-nominated effort by Lebanese writer-director Nadine Labaki became the most lucrative Middle-Eastern film in history and received a 15-minute standing ovation at Cannes in 2018. I don't think it's nearly that impressive but even so, it engaged and stimulated me throughout. Capernaum, named for the city in Galilee that Jesus condemned for refusing to repent for its sins after He performed a miracle there, does what all dramatic non-English movies should do: provide a clear and insightful peek into life in an entirely different culture to your own, while still showing flickers of globally familiar things. Labaki's Beirut is rife with Islamic motifs and traditions but also hallmarks of Western culture, and of course devastating poverty. Her direction very lucidly and sympathetically sorts through this mess of a cultural melting pot to find and then focus on the human beings inhabiting it, and the screenplay very refreshingly makes these very damaged children talk and act very maturely; there's a great deal of swearing here. Al Rafeea was an illiterate, untrained performer before being cast here (the character was named for him) and yet he expresses just the right determined yet vulnerable and disaffected attitude in each scene to let the viewer connect with his delinquent character. All his co-stars hold their own, but he's the one who shines most. Capernaum is a very compelling snapshot of modern Lebanon, and a welcome and conscious contrast to views of the Middle East we're so often given in the media.
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