Video Librarian Reviews
Actress-turned-director Nadine Labaki's film explores the plight of refugees, children, and the impoverished in the slums of contemporary Lebanon. Capernaum opens with Zain (real-life Syrian refugee Zain Al Rafeea)—a smart, streetwise child of 12 serving a five-year sentence for assault—in court. His story rolls out in flashback: living in an overcrowded apartment with countless siblings, spending his days hustling in the streets, and running off after his parents essentially sell off his 11-year-old sister as a child bride for their adult landlord. Zain becomes a doting older brother to the infant son of an Ethiopian immigrant woman who takes him in and he reluctantly returns home after she is arrested, only to learn of a family tragedy. It's a devastating, often brutal film about the exploitation of children, migrants, and refugees seen through the eyes and experiences of a young boy who is doing all he can to survive in a predatory world. Al Rafeea, a non-actor discovered on the streets of Beirut, convincingly communicates affection, anger, outrage, courage, fear, and swagger in a moving performance, and Labaki gives the film a rough, immediate realism by shooting on location. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes and an Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language film, this is highly recommended. (S. Axmaker). Copyright Video Librarian Reviews 2018.