At the beginning of the new year, I watched "Capernaum" at the Film Forum. After last year's "Humiliation", another Lebanese film with an excellent reputation. As at this time last year, this work was selected as one of the top five Oscars for best foreign language films and is also a strong contender for the award. Both films were set in Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, but unlike "Humiliation", which is mostly an indoor scene, "Capernaum" uses a large number of location and real shots, bringing us closer to this country and also allowing us to be able to Caress her real edges and corners more closely.
Director Nadine Labaki's control of the image quality in "Capernaum" is impressive. "Humiliation" is more "dramatic" "in one go", while "Capernaum" focuses on expressing "emotional details" through the picture itself-this is somewhat similar to the idea of "Rome". A lot of hand-held follow-up and semi-documentary real-time shooting, as well as the overhead lens to maximize the perspective of the little boy Zain, are actually the same as Karon's tirelessly shaking the long mirror. It is more of an image presentation of the director's artistic attitude. In every frame of "Capernaum", we must be able to read Labaki's emotional care for the wounds on this land.
The movie started in a series of aerial shots, seemingly "tickling", but in the next 100 minutes, Labaki completely put down such an ambiguous figure, and went straight to the character and his minutiae. The cramped corridors, messy rooms, dusty streets, and the stark look of the hero Zain. The use of non-professional actors adds a strong sense of substitution to the film. We soon realized that what we saw was not "a play" or "a story with a certain meaning", but the status quo and life itself.
The plot structure of "Capernaum" reflects Labaki's desire for expression and creative ambition. The first part of Zain's family life and his later exodus are completely separate chapters, and from the perspective of plot, the first part can also be more concise. But looking back, especially when I realized that Rabbaki’s intention to present a panoramic view of contemporary Lebanon using a “collage-like” approach, we realized that instead of focusing on the balance between the plot and the structure of the drama itself, the “tracking” and The more important thing is to give enough time and attention to the process of "observing" the bottom group.
When the little boy Zain first appeared on the stage, he was not a very pleasing image. He had a "mature" and rebellious image that was not commensurate with his age. The maturity here is in quotation marks. As the eldest brother in the actual sense of the family, he is easy to think of the eldest son Ming played by Ryu Le Yumi in "Nobody Knows", but the two temperaments are completely different. Zain's concern for his sister is reflected in his hot temper and rebellious approach. Before the film enters the second episode of the black baby Yonas, it is difficult for us to feel the temperature of this character. But with the unfolding of this part, after Zain walked out of his home and collided with the broader and more complex real world, we only touched his human brilliance bit by bit.
It is also in this second part that "Capernaum" has entered its most exciting place. The film's extension of the topic and the deep digging of the characters are realized in this part. Compared with the slightly chaotic family sketch in the first part, this chapter has a more stable character structure. Babies who are inexperienced, and mothers who have entered the world deeply and know how to struggle in the quagmire. The male protagonist standing among them assumes the dual identities of rebel and carer. The interaction between the three of them undoubtedly makes the film more vivid and richer.
For Zain, he has to face all the hardships and injustices that he is so familiar with in the new environment, and to experience the "double truth" that "it is not different after leaving home", but also to be in this new environment. At the same time shoulder new responsibilities, and an emotional contribution that has nothing to do with blood relationship. So far, the film has sublimated from the family perspective of "seeing the big from the small" to a broader social dimension-which is completely different from the court scene and "personal history" in "Humiliation". Therefore, compared with other works that also focus on children and disadvantaged groups (such as the recent "Florida Paradise"), the depiction of "Capernaum" is thicker and more three-dimensional, and the emotions are naturally more profound.
Zain dragged Yonas with a scooter and a rice cooker to walk in the streets of Beirut. We watched the weak figures of the two children from the side of the camera. They are undoubtedly the most regrettable ones in "Capernaum". One of an instant. Coincidentally, this is one of the few humorous passages in this work that records pale reality. The smiling sadness that freezes four or two in this picture is something we won't forget long after we walked out of the theater.
The narrative of Capernaum also follows a loop structure in essence. The end and the beginning of the film are connected by court scenes, while the whole film uses a flashback to explain the suspense at the beginning. . From a structural point of view, it is quite neat. What makes people feel more complete is the rhythm and emotional paving behind this structure: the first part is tepid, after the male protagonist leaves and the female protagonist appears, and then enters the climax after the disappearance of the mother, and finally closed in two. Each part of the "action" of reunion and prosecution of each family has its own clear role and expands the boundary of the subject bit by bit.
When it comes to prosecuting the "action" itself, I personally feel that it is more like a label than an organic part of the entire movie. Zain's impassioned statement on the phone, like the final verdict in "Humiliation", is just a link that has to be rounded out from the perspective of the plot, rather than the final "foothold" of the film. It doesn’t really matter what the judge’s decision is and what Zain said. Nadine Labaki has already shown us Lebanon in her eyes for two full hours, telling it from the actual length and shooting perspective. We, what really needs our attention. I think this is the charm of documenting images.
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