• Capernaum is a social realist drama shot on location in the slums of Lebanon
  • Follows the realist, or neorealist linage from Rossellini on down to Bunuel’s Los Olvidados, to the work of the Dardenne brothers and Sean Bakers The Florida Project
  • Zain- a young boy (who doesn’t not look like Enzo Staiola from Bicycle Thieves) is literally suing his parents for being born. We see him in the opening as a crass figure swearing in the courtroom and initially it does feel like it’s going to be a courtroom drama. However, the majority of the film is a flashback of what led to this point in the story. We see him being used by his parents, making drugs, standing up for his sister who is being pimped out by the parents.
  • Labaki’s message is pretty clear and in a few spot the characters are a little too self-aware of their message, but she shows Zain taking care of a baby (the Rahil immigrant mother character’s baby). Zain does a good job, his parents do not. Labaki also parallels the story of struggle for the innocent immigrant (Rahil) being taken advantage just like the innocent child. At one point Labaki is bouncing off them back and forth edited in jail separately
  • Handheld camera, authenticity in the squalor of the locations
  • A poignant story, tough to watch the series of hardships and sorrow
  • Recommend but not in the top 10 of 2018