Capharnaüm
Capernaum
Chaos

Lebanese director and actress Nadine Labaki (Where Do We Go Now?) crafts an immersive world from a child’s eye view in Capernaum (or Chaos). The story follows Zain (Zain al Rafeea), a pre-teen Lebanese boy incarcerated in juvenile detention who sues his parents for the "crime" of birthing him into a world of poverty and neglect. Framed as a courtroom drama, Capernaum is mostly told in flashback. We see how Zain, a bold, wise-beyond-his-years child, sees his parents for the irresponsible (though not entirely unsympathetic) individuals they are. After trying to save his barely-pubescent sister from an arranged marriage, he runs away, living on the streets via his tenacious wits. Dodging all kinds of men who would do him all kinds of wrongs, he meets up with an Ethiopian refugee (Yordanos Shiferaw), and becomes a quasi-foster-father for her infant son.

Capernaum is the latest film to showcase an astounding juvenile performance from a non-professional child actor. Like Brooklynn Prince in The Florida Project, Quvenzhané Wallis in Beasts of the Southern Wild, Abraham Attah in Beasts of No Nation, Sunny Pawar in Lion, (the list goes on and on), fourteen year-old Zain gives an authentic and moving performance—making even hard-to believe story points feel utterly credible. Most of the cast is comprised of non-professionals playing characters whose lives closely parallel their own. Labaki’s scripted the situations and asked her actors to react spontaneously. Thus, the film, while depicting extreme situations, possesses an everyday, lived-in quality. The rich imagery captured by cinematographer Christopher Aoun is unlike any other film in theaters this year. And while the story is bleak, the film manages to strike a hopeful note—at least when it comes to the power of an individual to overcome systemic dysfunction.