Zain has an angelic face. But rådjursblicken is sad and the words angry. No one really knows his age, maybe 12. In the striped shirt behind a high table, he speaks in the courtroom in Beirut. He is paperless, streetsmart and are sitting in jail. But now, facing a judge, he wants to sue their parents. For giving him life. The beginning of Nadine Labakis oscar nominated ”Capernaum” is predicated on something we don’t yet know: zain’s horrific childhood.
-We found Zain Al Rafeea on a street in Beirut where he grew up. He is a syrian refugee and in the movie he plays more or less himself, says Nadine Labaki, who has just received in a hotel room during the Toronto international film festival, after a long wait. The schedule is tight but Labaki is kolugn – her movie is hot after jurypriset in Cannes in the spring (she was one of the favorites to win the palme d’or). With a deep voice, ” she says.
” these undocumented children are completely invisible, as if they were not there. But they are, in all cities in the world and we allow the absurd.
, who are fleeing from their neglect parents and survives in Beirut’s chaotic shanty towns, born out of the Labakis long commitment to children’s inequalities. The title she has borrowed from the biblical village who were condemned by Jesus and the word is used in French literature.
– Before we wrote the script we set up all the themes we wanted to explore on a bulletin board. They were many. At one point, I looked back on it and said ”c’est capernaüm”, “it is hell …it is chaos.”
During a four-year period, interviewed Labaki children in the margin, their parents and migrationsarbetare. She spent hours in courtrooms in order to grasp the subject. After six months of filming were five hundred hours of material, the first draft was twelve hours. During the filming sounded Labaki children create the mood of the story.
” It was like a dance. A choreography between fiction and reality. Everyone in the film have almost the same situation in real life. Zain was illiterate, I told you the purpose of a scene, and then I adjusted myself to him and the others. I didn’t want them to ”play” but just be who they are. Therefore, I needed to believe in what I did, ” says Labaki and fix her long white dress.
For its human depiction of extreme poverty has ”Capernaum” had been compared with Vittorio De Sicas neo-realism’s ”juvenile hall” (1946), but also praised the ”Shoplifters” (2018) and brazil’s ”Araby” (2017). The film, however, has not fallen all on the lip. Portraying human vulnerability is a minefield of double ethnic challenges and Labaki has had to endure criticism. Several, in contrast, see the film as a kind of motståndssång for the innocent.
– There are many cynical people and I hope they do not change me. But they can make me very ill. For me it is about finding solutions. For if we continue to marginalise these people, shoot we only presented the problems and they get worse.
floats also in Labakis previous films (all three she has done has won awards at Stockholm international film festival). But the ”Caramel” (2007) and ”What do we do now?” (2011), has a significantly lighter tone. In them play Labaki also the lead roles. In ”Capernaum”, she shows for a short moment up as zain’s lawyer in the courtroom.
”Capernaum” became a hit in the Stockholm international film festival
Labaki already knew as a child that the acting and directing was her calling. Having grown up in a war-torn Lebanon, she won a talent show, studied visual art, acting, and directed praised the videos for musicians from the Middle east.
– I was bored as a child. We had to spend most of your time at home and we were not allowed to go out and play for the war was on. I was lucky, for in my house there was a deal with video cassettes. As I recall, we snuck around and rented movies like ”Grease”.
As an adult is the iranian film Labaki heart: the sharp dialogues, realism and social issues. As one of the few in his generation of world-renowned directors from the arab world were Labaki, the first arab woman to win a big prize in Cannes. She is also the first to become oscar nominated (for best foreign language film).
” of course it is important but not that I am a woman. It is only normal that there are more and more women in the world of film. For me it feels wrong and weird to say ”female” director. Metoo – and Times Up-the movements are healthy they open up the debate and for the issue forward. But I think that if a few years we will not, we should not even talk about it. The movements are a step closer to a healing. We are on the right track, I know it.
not bright on the merciless injustices children face:
” I see it every day. These children are hanging on the societies for the outer edge and are in the thousands. They have no paper that proves they exist. And therefore no rights to go to school or get health care if they become ill. How can our system allow this kind of absurdity continue? In the end, I think it is about the fear of ”the other” and the fear has become a vicious circle that we cannot seem to be able to take us out.
In ”Capernaum” talking to the children about Sweden as a paradise.
” I took with Sweden in these children’s heads, there are nice houses up there in the north. They think that the kids have their own rooms, knocking before you go in and you can go there in a big boat. They fantasize about something that is the opposite of their reality. A place where one can die a natural death….
