News
CAPHARNAUM
Media:
According to one definition found online, Capharnaum means a "disorderly accumulation of objects." Although that's a fantastically uncommercial title for a movie, the concept suits this latest work from actor-writer-director Nadine Labaki (Caramel, Where Do We Go Now?). She's made up a grab bag of ideas and plot elements that work surprisingly effectively as a melodrama with a message. Several messages, in fact, all illustrated through the ordeals suffered by 12-year-old Zain (Zain Al Rafeea), a child fighting to survive in the slums and shanty towns of Lebanon. Although the narrative is structured through a highly unbelievable instigating conceit — Zain is trying to sue his own parents in court for giving him life in the first place — Labaki lures such outstanding performances out of the almost entirely non-professional cast and sketches such a credible view of this wretchedly poor milieu that the flaws are mostly forgivable.
Labaki and casting director Jennifer Haddad have sought actors whose life stories track closely to the backstories of the characters they're playing. That means star Al Rafeea really is a kid who had until recently been working, per the press notes, as a delivery boy since the age of 10, while Cedra Izam, the girl who plays his 11-year-old sister, is a Syrian refugee who was discovered while selling chewing gum in the streets of Beirut, and so on.
But such parallels between life and art aren't enough on their own to account for the felt authenticity of the performances. It takes a director with genuine empathy, patience and rapport with performers, backed by enough budget to shoot hundreds of hours of footage (the film was made over six months) in order to make a work this emotionally persuasive.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/capharnaum-review-1112973
If you want to contribute with your opinion, you can do it through our Facebook link (at the top of the page)
