Capernaum (2018)
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Capernaum Movie Review
Capernaum is a 2018 Lebanese drama film directed by Nadine Labaki and starring Zain Al Rafeea. It’s one of the year’s best films.
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“I want to sue my parents for giving birth to me“
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Let’s imagine a boy on the streets and almost everything bad that can happen to him. And that is this movie. Needless to say, it’s immensely depressing, extremely hard to take in and watch, but ultimately emotionally rewarding, very powerful, hard-hitting and definitely important in its message. The movie preaches pro-choice and that birthing children whom you cannot support should literally be considered a crime and I do agree with that wholeheartedly.
The Arab countries still have this huge problem which just might be the worst problem any country could possibly have and this movie is a plea to stop that. It showcased painfully their awful tendency to procreate despite barely managing to take care of themselves financially, let alone their children. Thus this movie was a necessary reminder how awful children have it in these countries.
And I am personally a big wimp when it comes to children. Along with animals, I am highly sensitive when it comes to the children in movies and what happens to them while for adults I am totally desensitized. That’s why this movie killed me personally and proved to be an exhausting experience for me. It’s like ‘Lion’, but oh so much worse.
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And that definitely proved to be a problem with Capernaum. At least a bit of a problem because it’s just way too dark and depressing and piling awful scene after awful plot point and I could barely stand it anymore. It needed more light and humor. It actually has some humorous, fun scenes, but they are so rare that they felt like they did not belong there. Also, that final plot point with his sister, although necessary, was too much for me to handle as it was despicable beyond words.
People absolutely need to start taking child actors seriously as sometimes they truly excel. That’s certainly the case with this film’s Zain Al Rafeea who plays Zain amazingly! I was blown away by the pure strength of his talent and how he played his enormously difficult role with a lot of talent, nuance and high emotion. Just in his eyes you could see unfathomable pain and he was simply a revelation.
He’s an immensely cute child, but the baby is absolutely adorable. Their scenes are the most endearing of the bunch and seeing Zain care for him like his own brother was touching and the most human thing I’ve seen all year in a film. His mother is a tragic figure and I loved the film’s exploration of Ethiopian refugees in Lebanon. That added a lot of complexity to an already very real and serious film. His parents are truly awful human beings, but Aspro is a great soul for sure.
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Capernaum is gorgeously shot by Christopher Aoun and with such a vivid eye for detail and realism that it almost felt like a documentary which was a great, fitting choice for this raw, real film in every way. The score is also one of the year’s best as it hits just the right notes in those tragic sequences. The dialogue is superb and only the tone is too monotone, but the pacing is pretty good and I was engaged throughout. The direction from Nadine Labaki is absolutely phenomenal and also one of the year’s best leading to a film that is the third best foreign flick of 2018 after ‘Border’ and ‘Shoplifters’.
With superb, documentarian cinematography, an excellent score and fantastic directing from Nadine Labaki, Capernaum also features one of the year’s finest acting performances in young Zain Al Rafeea who’s a true revelation with just his eyes managing to express unfathomable sorrows. The movie got burdened with too many horrible plot points that it became honestly too hard to watch, but it’s still a highly important, necessary film that heartbreakingly showcases the huge birth rate problem of the Arab countries. It’s touching, hard-hitting and phenomenal across the board leading to one of the ten best films of the year.
