This is one of the more disturbing movies one is likely to see. Disturbing in the sense that it reveals the horrendous conditions that people are forced to live in if they have no other recourse. The story follows a twelve year old Lebanese boy, (who quite literally doesn't even know his true age) who has seen enough in his short lifetime that he has no trouble at all distinguishing good from bad. Unfortunately for Zain (Zain Al Rafeea), things are almost always bad, as the story traces his tragic circumstances at home and the way he's forced to use his street smarts to survive in unrelenting chaotic conditions. What infuriated me the most was the extent of human trafficking that the film reveals, which affected Zain's own family and circumstances, to a degree that he lost his own eleven year old sister to a merchant who traded meager security for a youngster he could abuse sexually. I would have been more comfortable with the central character if his upbringing hadn't contaminated him with the obscene language he used in virtually every circumstance, calling his own mother a whore, though her treatment of Zain certainly didn't qualify Saoud (Kawsar Al Haddad) as Mother of the Year. What the story never got around to however, was a resolution to the premise that Zain sued his parents for 'being born'. A courtroom hearing delivered no reprisals against the couple, nor do we learn what happened to the man Assaad (Nour El Husseini), who made Zain's sister an unintended victim. The pathos and poignancy of the story is best expressed in Zain's own words to a mother who held no value for the life her children - "Your words are stabbing me in the heart".
Review of Capernaum
