DVD Review - Capernaum

This film was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 91st Academy Awards. It was the official selection from Lebanon to compete for that award after being nominated for 9 Lebanese Movie Awards and winning the Jury Prize at the 71st Cannes Film Festival. It's in Arabic and was one of the few films last year to be recognized that was directed by a woman. Director and co-writer Nadine Labaki crafts a tale that sees what the effects of poverty and undocumented immigration are on the children of adults in said situations. It's the Lebanese version of The Florida Project (2017), a film that wasn't about undocumented immigrants but was about poverty and depicted such through the eyes and point-of-view of children. It was also done with a lot of non-professional or first-time actors in a rather documentary-style way.

Sean Baker who directed The Florida Project was simply trying to show the dichotomy of the deprived and impoverished in the shadow of a place that is a shining example of wealth and opulence, and that's Disney World. Labaki is attempting something a bit more complicated here in that her film is framed on a bit more of a complicated conceit. Labaki's film centers on a 12-year-old boy in Beirut who is suing his parents basically for the impoverished life into which they brought him. He's basically suing them for being born. It's an interesting, complicated and compelling conceit that Labaki uses simply as a framing device. It's not explored to any depth, such that it would make this film a legal drama like the recent, Lebanese film The Insult (2018). Instead, the movie is mostly flashback explaining how the boy came to be in court.

Zain Al Rafeea stars as Zain Al Hajj, the 12-year-old boy in question. He lives with his parents and what seems like a half-dozen or more siblings in a tiny apartment above a store. They all sleep in one room, crowded next to each other. When his parents have sex, thus creating another baby, they simply put a bed sheet up between them and the kids, but Zain can still hear them. The apartment is dirty and infested with roaches. There's barely any electricity or food. It's not clear if his parents have jobs, but they have roped Zain and his siblings into a drug trafficking operation. Zain and his siblings also sell carrot juice on the streets, much in the way kids have lemonade stands, but Zain sells stuff on the streets literally to keep from starving not as some extracurricular activity.

One day, he sees his sister start to bleed. He probably doesn't know the word menstruation, but he knows that the blood means his sister is grown-enough to start having children, despite being only 11 or 12 herself. Maybe she's 13 but no older. Girls seem to mature faster than boys but Zain still feels like he's the older brother despite him maybe being actually younger. He tries to help his sister hide her fertility from her parents because he fears they will marry her off to an older man either for the money or just to save them the expense of having another mouth to feed.

Yordanos Shiferaw co-stars as Rahil aka Tigest, the undocumented immigrant from Ethiopia. Somehow, she came to Beirut and got a job at an amusement park, as part of the cleaning staff. Yet, she now has a baby. She's managed for the first year or so of the baby's life. She can't exactly afford child care, which means she has to bring her baby to work and find ways to hide him. She lives in a shack in what looks like a shantytown in Beirut somewhere. She barely has electricity or clean water. She lives in fear of deportation and is trying to save up enough money to buy a fake ID, except the guy selling her it is charging her a high price. He also has an indecent proposal to buy her baby. When Zain runs away from home, Rahil takes him in and he becomes her babysitter and tries to help her.

The film follows Zain as he struggles to do so. Eventually, so much is put upon him that he can't handle it. It becomes reminiscent of The Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete (2013), except that film was a bit more redemptive. This film feels more fueled by anger and is more condemning, especially of the parents. Labaki's film does give voice to the parents as they recognize that there are bigger societal issues at play. It's weird because despite giving us this voice, Labaki's film still settles on a single conclusion that is too simplistic that it doesn't address the overall issues, neither the ones affecting Zain or Rahil.

It makes sense given that the solution is coming from Zain, a child who knows no better, but framing it as a legal case that's supposed to yield some result only makes it seem more ridiculous. I wish the film had an ending similar to Asghar Farhadi's A Separation. I applaud Labaki for coming up with an ending that's more definitive, if a bit childish. Maybe it's not meant to be a solution but a call to arms, forcing people to look at this situation and the desperation of people like Zain and his family. Labaki does spend a lot of time looking at Zain, focusing on him and his struggle. It gets to a point where it does become poverty porn. What helps to get through it is Rahil's very adorable baby, Yonas, played by Boluwatife Treasure Bankole, who steals every scene she's in.

Rated R for language and some drug material.
Running Time: 2 hrs. and 5 mins.