Young newcomer Zain Al Rafeea looks like a bonzai Gael García Bernal. For the next few weeks you’re going to see his beautiful face everywhere.
Luckily, Capernaum avoids being one of those movies in which slum kids do the cutest things. Jail and courtroom scenes, at the beginning and end, may be a tad implausible, not to mention scrappy. But the middle section, mostly shot on handheld cameras on the streets of Beirut, is breathtaking, topical, hilarious, tender and brutal.
Zain’s parents are poor and angrily befuddled; they haven’t acquired identity papers for any of their (many) children, which means the kids are as disenfranchised as refugees. It gets worse. Money’s so tight that the parents are prepared to sell their 11-year-old daughter to a businessman.
Zain runs away and winds up looking after an illegal immigrant’s baby. The boy baby, Yonas, is actually played by a one-year-old girl (the hypnotically responsive Boluwatife Treasure Bankole). The chemistry between Zain and Yonas is glorious. But wait till you see what Zain does next.
Look out, too, for a wizened Armenian guy who wears a DIY superhero costume and calls himself Cockroach Man. At its best, Capernaum refuses to separate lions from lambs or heroes from parasites. Zain, Yonas and Cockroach Man — three shades of beautiful, they’re truly a sight for sore eyes.
