"Capharnaüm" is a film but also a uppercut in the belly for the viewer

Cinema

Nadine Labaki is making a real war film against child abuse in Beirut.

It is believed to be attending a medical school visit, but in fact, this doctor examines a boy's mouth to badess his age. "Twelve years"he says "because he has no more baby teeth". Afterwards, he is handcuffed, taken to court, the judge interrogates him and flash-back in the family two-room in Beirut where a pack of children is piled up to which the mother gives movement with blows. torgnoles.

Zain hastens to go out on the street with his sister. He is panicked. He saw a blood stain. If her parents realize that Sahar is settled, they will marry her to the local grocer who has already bid. By all means, the boy tries to delay the deadline, to organize his flight, but his little sister is sold too quickly – we must call things by their name.

Rage, despair, sadness, he leaves the house. A plastic bag on the shoulder, he climbs into the first bus to fail on the site of a large permanent fair. Although very resourceful, he is quickly reduced to beg for food. Not too successful when an Ethiopian, a toilet attendant, takes her with her in his cubbyhole of a village of sheets to watch over her baby when she works.

Capernaum is a film but it is also an uppercut that the viewer gets in the belly. Director Nadine Labaki sprays the shell with her fatal weapon, Zain, the kid. His weapon, because it is a film of action for a child who fights and struggles in the heart of misery. It is even a war movie against child abuse, against the exploitation of undocumented migrants literally enslaved. It is neither in cinematic elegance nor in moderation, it is the opposite of the restraint of Bicycle Thief. His camera is a machine gun that fires round the parents who make children without raising them, against these men who buy girls, against the vicious circle – in every sense of the word – of misery.

This boy with an angry look, vital energy, overflowing with love for his sister and this baby he has custody, this Zain Alrafeea breaks the screen. Nadine Labaki films it in a snatch, documentary way on the fly, showing a life of street child, unbearable to watch but that is yet that of so many children in Beirut and elsewhere. And at the same time, Zain breathes into the story a powerful romantic dimension, that of a Dickens destiny.

The Lebanese filmmaker badumes her accusing position by playing the child's lawyer on the screen, but she remains speechless when Zain's mother tells her: "What do you know about misery?"

Is this a reason to stay without reacting? Nadine Labaki does it with a punch that is not always cinematographically correct. She abuses music, she flirts dangerously with the pathos but her film vibrates with the angry conviction that the cinema has the power to make people aware, to move the lines.

Production : Nadine Labaki. Screenplay: Nadine Labaki, Jihad Hojeily, Michelle Kesrouani, Georges Khabbaz, Khaled Mouzanar. With Zain Alrafeea, Yordanos Shifera, Boluwatife Treasure Bankole … 2h03.

Bio express

Born in Lebanon, Nadine Labaki grew up during the civil war and graduated in Audiovisual Studies in 1997 at the University of Saint Joseph in Beirut.

Once graduated, she turned to TV, made video clips for popular artists in the region, for which she won several awards.

In 2005, she took part in the Cannes Festival Residence to write Caramel, his first feature film shot in Lebanon. She is both an actress and director of this film which will be screened at the Directors' Fortnight in 2007. He won several awards and will be released in 60 countries.

Nadine Labaki's second film, So where are we going now ? (Where Do We Go Now?) that she wrote, directed and performed, was also screened at Cannes in 2011 in the Un Certain Regard section. He won the Special Ecumenical Jury Award and was awarded in Toronto and San Sebastian before being screened at Sundance. It is the most profitable Arab film in Lebanon to date.

In 2014, Nadine realized Rio, I Love You, one of the segments of the anthology film Cities of Love she co-wrote and performed opposite Harvey Keitel.

As an actress, she played in Mea Culpa from Fred Cavayé, The Ransom of Glory Xavier Beauvois, Stray Bullet for the Lebanese director Georges Hachem and Rock the Casbah of Moroccan director Laïla Marrakchi.