Tropic Sprockets / Capernaum

Tropic Sprockets / Capernaum

By Ian Brockway

 

Nadine Labaki’s “Capernaum” (Choas) nominated for Best Foreign Film is tense, knotty, claustrophobic and unfailingly compelling. As a portrait of childhood it is feverish, unsettling, brutal and brutish. It does not let up for one moment and it is unsparingly anxious.

Zain (Zain Al Rafeea) is a twelve year old boy in Lebanon. He lives in a shack with his Mom (Nadine Labaki) father (Fadhi Yousef) and several siblings. Zain is especially drawn to Sahar (Haita ‘Cedra’ Izzam). The two are inseparable.

Zain is convinced that his parents are planning to marry off Sahar in exchange for money. He tells her to be ready to escape.

When he gets home the next day, Mom has Sahar packed ready to go to Assaad (Tamer Ibrahim). Zain, understandably apoplectic, unleashes a stream of profanity at his mother.

He takes refuge at a fairground hoping to find work, or some relief from his torment. There, he meets the kind and practical Ruhil (Yordanas Shiferaw). She is as sweet as Zain’s mother is harsh.

Zain is fascinated by her and the fascination is mutual. Zain grows close to Ruhil’s baby, Yoni (Boluwatife Treasure Bankole).

Ruhil is trying to become legal but she doesn’t have the proper papers. She attempts to make a deal with the shifty Aspro (Alaa Chouchnieh) but to no avail.

One day, she goes to see the loan shark but does not return.

The performances are superior. Most exemplary are the child-actors who all are nearly transcendent. Zain Al Rafeea is so fluid and seamless, he exists in a world all of his own making. Equally astounding and almost scarily so, is Boluwatife Treasure Bankole as Yoni. There is no cinematic filter in any of the acting.

This is life.

Not since reading Jerzy Kosinski’s The Painted Bird or seeing Alan Parker’s “Midnight Express” have I witnessed such a portrait of struggle or innocence lost. Most every person that Zain encounters is under a blight of opportunism, fickle behavior or outright evil. Essentially an orphan with Yoni, Zain is forced to do what he can. The boy, who becomes a miniature man by fate, battles against the shacks, pictured as cubist hovels as if by a demented Braque.

The most shocking element of “Capernaum” is not Zain’s violence, it is his wondrous smile at the end of the film. Zain, in actuality is a small boy and if only events had been easier, he might just have had a chance to feel the child within.

Write Ian at [email protected]

 

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