Mark Reviews Movies: CAPERNAUM

Become a fan on Facebook Follow on Twitter

Review by Mark Dujsik | December 13, 2018

Misery upon misery comes to the 12-year-old boy at the heart of Capernaum. The misery begins, perhaps, with his age or, better, the fact that everyone, including the boy himself, is only guessing at how old he actually is. He comes from a family that refuses to keep records, probably because they don't have the money to participate in programs and institutions that insist on a paper trail. Nonetheless, the family keeps growing, taking up more and more of the very limited space in their one-bedroom apartment in a poverty-stricken area of Beirut.

The story of the boy's home life and his eventual rejection of that life is told in flashback, as part of assorted testimonies at a court hearing. The plaintiff is Zain (Zain Al Rafeea), the possibly 12-year-old kid, who is currently serving a prison sentence at a juvenile detention facility for stabbing someone. The defendants are Zain's parents Selim (Fadi Kamel Yousef) and Souad (Kawsar Al Haddad), who, we later learn, is pregnant again.

The case before the court is one of questionable legal merit: Zain is suing his parents for being born. Considering everything that he has gone through in his young life, he thinks that it would have been better if he had never been born in the first place.

One wonders how a judge is supposed to consider, let alone make a ruling in, this case, but for the most part, that's beside the point in co-writer/director Nadine Labaki's movie. Ultimately, the trial is framed as a form of public service of sorts. Because of its inherent oddity, the case becomes of national interest, and people are talking about the conditions in which Zain and other impoverished people in the capital city of Lebanon must live. Something must be done, but it's never clear if Labaki and her fellow screenwriters Jihad Hojeily and Michelle Keserwany have an idea as to what that something might be.

The trial, then, serves as an accurate reflection of the movie as a whole. There are good intentions behind it, even if the actual case being made is one of pessimism bordering on nihilism. The important thing isn't that we understand the political, socioeconomic, and/or cultural causes of this poverty, and it's definitely not that we come away with even the inkling of a plan about how these conditions might be fixed. No, the most important thing to learn here is that Zain's life, like the lives of so many in Beirut, is one of constant insecurity, fear, and misery.

We get the point. That's for sure. After the framing device is established, with Zain explaining the reason he has taken his parents to court, we move back in time a few months to see the boy at home with his large family. He has at least seven siblings, and an early scene suggests that an older brother is in prison—along with a few of the children's cousins.

Both Selim and Souad are abusive. Zain works at a local store run by Assaad (Nour El Husseini), who wants to marry Zain's younger sister Sahar (Haita "Cedra" Izzam). The boy tries to protect her—teaching her how hide the fact that she has had her first period, lest their parents think the time has come to marry off their daughter. They find out, though, and despite Zain and Sahar's protests and begging, the girl is sent away with Assaad. Zain runs away from home.

He's taken in by Rahil (Yordanos Shiferaw), an undocumented immigrant from Ethiopia, who is raising a 1-year-old son on her own, while working multiple jobs that don't pay much. To ensure that she isn't deported and possibly separated from her child, Rahil is trying to earn enough money to pay for a new forged permit from Aspro (Alaa Chouchnieh), a black market dealer who keeps trying to take Rahil's son as payment. In order to work as much as possible, Rahil and Zain come to an agreement: He'll watch the son while she is at work, and she'll provide him with a place to stay and food.

As one might imagine, given the course of Zain's story so far, the makeshift home doesn't last for long. A good portion of the story—the best portion, for that matter—follows Zain as he attempts to care for himself and Rahil's son on his own. Zain's resourcefulness, developed over the years of living in poverty and pretty much having to fend for himself, is on full display, as he scams and steals in order to preserve his own life and the life of a child who has no one else. Labaki and cinematographer Christopher Aoun shoot the entire movie with a handheld style, giving it an air of realism, but these scenes, filmed on location across the impoverished parts of Beirut, have a level of authenticity that's devastating.

The same, unfortunately, cannot be said of Capernaum as a whole. The narrative's framing device eventually returns, as we learn how Zain came to be in prison and how his case came to the court. It's a lengthy third act that makes us think the screenwriters might have some answers for the issues underlying Zain's story. Instead, it's just a means for the filmmakers to make us feel slightly better about this one, fictional instance.

Back to Home

Buy Related Products

Buy the Blu-ray