Anthony Kirby looks at Nadine Labaki's latest feature
“Lebanon has many Palestinian immigrants, a lot of them undocumented. The government simply can’t send them back,” a Lebanese-Canadian told me when The Insult was released in late 2016. Perhaps because of its relative stability, Lebanon is now also a refuge for displaced Syrians. Director and actor Nadine Labaki won critical praise for her 2007 film Caramel, a gentle comedy about female friendship set in a beauty salon in lower-middle-class Beirut. Her second film, Where Do We Go Now?, is also a comedy, set in a small town in Lebanon where a church and a mosque stand side by side and the women try to prevent their husbands from engaging in a religious war.
Set in a squat in one of the poorer, overcrowded districts of Beirut, Capernaum is a complete departure for Labaki. It won the Jury Prize at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
For many Irish film lovers, the name Capernaum may be familiar from the New Testament. The ancient town, on the Sea of Galilee, features prominently in the Gospels. Today, the word has become a synonym for chaos and confusion. The Beirut that Labaki depicts is similarly overcrowded, yet there is also a sense of camaraderie among the inhabitants she warmly portrays. We first encounter Zain ( Zain Al Rafeea), the hero of the film, in a city jail. He has taken his mother and father to court for bringing him into the world without providing him or his siblings with even the necessities of life. Under questioning by a kindly judge, Zain informs him says: “I think I’m 12.” He is an undernourished boy with unruly hair, deep-set brown eyes and a serious, determined demeanour.
Told mostly in flashback, much of the film depicts Zain’s day-to-day life before his arrest. His family lives in a squalid, dank house at the mercy of its owner. Because Zain’s father has no papers, he cannot work legally. His harried mother, Souad (Kawsar Al Haddad), makes do with noodles and soup for meals but is often angry and slaps the younger girls. Zain runs errands for local merchants, quietly steals fruit and other food from shopkeepers and does everything he can to supplement the family budget. He has an impressive command of profanity and slang and tells would-be child molesters where to go in no uncertain terms.
Wise well beyond his years, Zain is particularly close to and protective of Sahar, his eldest sister. Noticing patches of blood on her underwear, he suspects that she has had her first period. He rushes to where the household pillowcases and clothing are kept, grabs a clean rag and urges Sahar to place it down the front of her knickers. His mother finds the cloth and realises that her daughter has reached puberty. She shows Sahar how to use make-up and introduces her to the son of their landlord, a man many years her senior. Zain returns from his chores and, noticing Sahar’s made-up face, takes her to task. Flattered by the attention of an older man, the innocent Sahar does not realise the danger she is in. Zain does.
He tries to devise an escape plan for himself and Sahar, but his parents distract him. When he returns from his chores later that day, Sahar is nowhere to be seen. Desperate for money, his parents have married her off as a child bride. Zain shouts at his mother, quickly throws a toothbrush and singlet into a satchel and rushes from the house. Sahar’s new husband has taken her to a town some distance from Beirut. Zain has little or no money. His intention is to find and free his sister, but he needs employment to finance his plan.
On a city bus, he meets an elderly man in a Spider-Man costume. Intrigued, Zain discovers that the man works at a carnival. He leaves the bus at the same stop as the performer and follows him to the amusement park. In a beautiful sequence, he lies down on a carousel for several minutes, then picks himself up, goes to a nearby milk bar and asks for work. Perhaps because of his age, the owner refuses to employ him. However, Rahil (Yordanos Shiferaw), an Ethiopian immigrant working in the fast-food shop, offers him food and later refuge. She works part-time at the amusement park and lives in a nearby shanty. She has forged work papers and is a new mother with an infant, Yonas, who quickly bonds with Zain.
Rahil works out a routine in which, each morning, she uses a breast pump and leaves Zain several bottles to give Yonas at set times during the day. Zain follows the timetable religiously while Rahil scrubs floors and disposes of rubbish. The fragile nature of this new household is evident, even though the love holding it together is genuine and understated. Anxious to contribute something to their meagre household budget, Zain scavenges the immediate environs of their lean-to for tin cans and anything else that might bring in money, but like everything else in his precarious existence, it is destined to be taken from him too.
This modern narrative has elements of a Dickens novel, with Zain in the mode of Pip in Great Expectations. Is his basic goodness simply childlike innocence, or does he possess an innate saintliness? Though something of a manipulator, Zain has a strong sense of honour. In first-time actor Zain Al Rafeea, a Syrian refugee, Labaki has found a gifted, understated performer who embodies her fictional character perfectly. The viewer does not simply believe in Zain; he trusts and loves him, as do Rahil and Yonas.
Made with financial support from Lebanese cultural and cinematic institutions, the film is fearless in its criticism of social agencies in Beirut and of the health system. At the same time, the children’s court system and organisations involved in the placement of vulnerable children are treated with considerably more sympathy. It is hard to categorise this film. It has the power of a documentary, yet the performances, gritty cinematography and carefully constructed narrative have an even greater force. It may have missed out on the Oscar, but Capernaum is a film of rare humanity and moral force. It deserves to be seen far beyond the Arab world and the Middle East, and to find the international audience its ambition and achievement merit.
Capernaum is in cinemas on Friday, 22nd February 2019.
