Capharnaüm (2018)

(Netflix Streaming, December 2020) If you’re wondering what’s the barest minimum “recommended” review I can give, I suppose it would look a lot like this take on Capharnaüm – a strong film that I did not enjoy watching and have no intention to ever watch again. Taking up deep into the misery of children surviving at the bottom of the slums of Beirut, it follows the hardscrabble life of a hardened 12-year-old living on the streets and trying to take care of even younger children. There is a cinematic plot of sorts, having to do with the young man wanting to sue his parents for neglect, but the heart of the film is in the near-documentary footage shot in abominably poor conditions, describing the daily reality of a nightmarish existence. Writer-director Nadine Labaki doesn’t quite control the high-level construction of her film, but certainly lets the images speak for themselves in creating an atmosphere and establishing character. But Capharnaüm is absolutely not entertaining to watch – more like a harrowing two-hour documentary than a piece of narrative fiction. I can certainly understand why it got the acclaim it received (all the way to an Oscar nomination) but I had a hard time making it to the end, and can go live a happier life now that I don’t have to do so again.