Capernaum

I really suffer watching this film. It is so well made with a painful plot. In terms of the art it is great. In terms of the story it is brutal. All the acting is amazing. It is so well made that I don't know if I watched kind of a documentary because it felt extremely real. Misery and poverty ache because they exist the same in every continent.

Eagerly awaiting the superhero spin-off film, "Cockroach Man".

Such a powerfull movie with great script and with important messages..It's a must watch movie i can't believe it took me so long to watch it..Kid's perfomance deserved an oscar for sure he was perfect.8.7/10

Perhaps a tad too long and a shade stretchy in its concept, yet the film drenches you in the personality that is Zain. The very young actor embodies this role fully.

A rough life, but sweetnes and love is found anywhere, even in the darkest of places. It's only so heartbreaking to see how this young boy tries to do everything he can to do the right thing, and yet the world around him is not letting him. Shockingly real for how it must be in real.

It had me in tears.

Absolutely incredible film making. Devastating, brutal and all those other adjectives that describe being born into poverty in a developing country.

Nadine Labaki has created a masterpiece. Zain Al Rafeea's performance is among the greatest pieces of child acting I've ever seen. Khaled Mouzanar wrote the screenplay and the score, which is beautiful. Christopher Aoun's cinematography is also on the nail.

This film is superb. I hope many, many people watch it.


9.5/10

i can say this is the best movie of Nadine labaki, deserves a palm d'or besides shoplifters. the story is classic but well written and too well performed by the actors, especially the young kid. i usually dont like emotional movies but this is one is too original that we dont see the difference between reality and the movie.
Great one.

Yet another great film from Nadine Labaki. Deeply moved by Zain's relation with his sister Sahar, a child trying to protect another child from getting married, well that speaks volumes!
And boy do Lebanese dictionary just filled with creative swears

A poignant and emotionally charged film that everyone should see. It skillfully portrays the profound impact of poverty on society, especially on children. While it's well-crafted, it's undeniably difficult to watch, yet it should be made available for free screenings, particularly in cinemas located in impoverished areas.

Who knew that 'misery' was a genre?

I wish this film hadn't been so well made. If it'd been less well made, I might not have taken it so hard.

_Capernaum_ is a badly titled film about Zain, a 12-year-old Syrian immigrant growing up in the slums of Beirut. His parents love him... to bring home money and food but other then that they couldn't really care less for him or his indiscriminate number of brothers and sisters. Zain doesn't go to school, works full time at a convenience 'store' and his favourite sister is given away to be married at 11 years old. And then his life gets tough.

The film has its shortcomings. The ending feels like it was forgotten about until the money was nearly out and then they had to wrap everything up during their lunch hour. Or the court case which is used as a framing device and feels very gimmicky (and is fortunately not dwelt upon).

But what works, works too well. There is a devastating sense of realism that comes through thanks to the directing and to the cast, many of whom are amateurs plucked from the streets to play the roles of their lives. Zain (Zain Al Rafeea) was a Syrian immigrant, Kawsar Al Haddad (his mother in the film) was an illegal immigrant, the girl who played his sister (Haita 'Cedra' Izzam) was discovered selling chewing gum on the streets of Beirut, the real life parents of the baby (Boluwatife Treasure Bankole) with whom Zain bonds in the movie were illegals and were deported for a time during the filming...

There is enough reality here to choke you, or at least choke you up.

_Capernaum_ is an experience so poignant it will pierce your heart, steal your breath, and wet your eyes with truth. It is a film you will probably love but certainly not like.

This is an incredibly hard film to review, simply because it truly puts into perspective just how useless any criticism against it is. The point of this movie is not to be a cinematic masterpiece, but to shock. And shock it does.

It succeeds for almost the entirety of its runtime in showing, through the use of non-professional actors and a social-realism directing style, the hardest truths about our rotten world. It fails, however, in the target it directs its social commentary at, often feeling indecisive or lost regarding what message it is trying to convey.

Labaki’s premise was the exploration of the lack of value a child’s life has in an environment like the one her film portrays, which does ultimately come through in the final product.

Despite a shaky finish where most of its faults are exposed, the large majority of the film is of mandatory viewing. In the end, reviewing it is meaningless because most of us will not be fit to judge it in the slightest, and could come off as unbearably out-of-touch if we try.