Capharnaüm

Lebanese director Nadine Labaki, returns to big screen with her heart wrenching third feature film, Capharnaüm, which received a twenty-minute standing ovation at Cannes this year before winning the Prix du Jury.

The movie begins at a trial where a young boy named Zain (Zain Al Rafeea) who is already serving a five-year sentence for stabbing someone sues his parents for “giving him life”.

Zain doesn’t know his exact age. He must be 12 or 13.

He doesn’t have a birth certificate or an ID card. He can’t benefit for basic medical care or register for a passport because by law he simply doesn’t exist.

Through a serie of flashbacks accentuated by multiple cuts and shaky camera movements Labaki unveils the harrowing struggles of the main character in the slums of Lebanon.

To help feed his half-a-dozen siblings, Zain works as a delivery man for the convenience store grocer who is also his parent’s landlord and is far too keen on his little sister Sahar (Cedra Izam).

When Zain’s parents Souad (Kawthar Al Haddad) and Salim (Fadi Kamel Youssef) finally sell off Sahar to be married, the revolted young boy runs away to the coast.

On his journey, he ends us meeting Sahil  (Yordanos Shiferaw), an undocumented Ethiopian woman who like him tries to survive in this hell they call life. Together, with Sahil’s one year-old-son Yonas  (Boluwatife Treasure Bankole) they begin to form a new family on their own.

When Sahil fails to return home one day after going out to run an errand, Zain finds himself alone to fend for himself and Yonas.

The remarquable cast mainly made of non-actors who themselves have experienced life in squalor inevitably draws parallel with Slumdog Millionaire.

Yet, it surpasses it. The chemistry and bond between Zain Al Rafeea and Boluwatife Treasure Bankole is baffling to watch and undeniable.

Cinematographer Christopher Aoun forces the audience to see the world through the lead's eyes by mainly keeping the camera about his twelve or thirteen-years-old height. Drone footage of the tin-roof tops of the shacks emphasis the powerless and constrained feeling Zain has abhorred his entire life.

In this Capharnaüm, who is to blame?

Labaki denounces a regime where child labour is the norm, under-aged and arranged marriage common and abuse to illegal immigrants since it won’t be reported by fear of deportation tolerated.

As Zain’s father tells the judge “What was he supposed to do?” He was told that his children would be “his backbones”.

Labaki doesn’t give a solution. She simply draws attention to the fact that lack of education, traditions and personal beliefs tend to cripple a society.