‎Capernaum (2018) directed by Nadine Labaki • Reviews, film + cast • Letterboxd

Capernaum

2018 ‘کفرناحوم’ Directed by Nadine Labaki

Zain, a 12-year-old boy scrambling to survive on the streets of Beirut, sues his parents for having brought him into such an unjust world, where being a refugee with no documents means that your rights can easily be denied.

Zain Al Rafeea Yordanos Shiferaw Boluwatife Treasure Bankole Nadine Labaki Kawthar Al Haddad Fadi Kamel Youssef Cedra Izam Nour el Husseini Alaa Chouchnieh Joseph Jimbazian Samira Chalhoub Farah Hasno Elias Khoury

Alternative Titles

Capharnaüm, 가버나움, כפר נחום, Cafarnaúm, Cafarnaum, كفرناحوم, Kapernaum, Kafarnaum, Капернаум

drama

126 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by Conal ★★★★ 6

Sean Baker: “Look how rough it is for impoverished children in America”

Nadine Labaki: “Hold my beer”
Review by Sean Baker 17

Zain Al Rafeea gives one the best child performances I've ever seen. Must go back and watch Nadine Labaki's previous film asap.

Cinematographer Christopher Aoun is quite a talent.

Watched at the Sunset Screening Room
Review by Forrest Cardamenis ★ 6

Capernaum is for people who think that the ultimate function of cinema is to make you feel sympathy for fictional people, and that political cinema is cinema that makes you feel sympathy for people who are less fortunate than you. It observes, in a frame story, the tribulations of an approximately 12-year-old boy, Zain, who fails to prevent his parents from marrying off his younger sister, runs away, and manages to fend for himself before returning home. There, he stabs the husband of his younger sister, who died in childbirth in his accent. We hear his tale as he recounts it in court, not as a defendant but as a plaintiff suing his parents for having given birth to him…
Review by Sofyan ★★★★½ 2

Life is a big shit. It's not worth more than my shoe.

- Oh my goodness.
- Capernaum is a raw.
- I have no words.
- Ok I cried, Why is this too sad?!
- Heartbreaking and devastating.
- Early-age marriage.
- Children rights.
- Love the storyline.
- Love the scores so much.
- Simple cinematography and I love it.
- Lebanon.
- Zain Al Rafeea is the most outstanding. Best child actor of the year! Or maybe all time. Future Oscar!!!
- I love the ending scene. It was so emotional.
- It really deserves an Oscar Nominee.
- Please check out this immediately.
- Nadine Labaki!!! Thank you so much for making me feel sad.
Review by Yady Anthony Miraldy ★★★★½ 35

Drama

"Why are you attacking your parents in court?"
Zain [12 year old] answers: "For giving me life!"
The film retraces the incredible journey of this child in search of his identity and who rebels against the life that was imposed on him.

CAPERNAUM in my opinion, this is one of the best foreign language movie in 2018. This film is brilliant! It had me in tears. Powerful and captivating. Beautifully executed. Captures full attention from first minute till the last.
- It's a moving story
- It's a touching story
- It's a heartbreaking story
________________________________________________________________________

کفرناحوم منوروت سايا ادله فيلم يڠ اينده دان لوار بياسا
- سوڠڬوه مڽنتوه
- سوڠڬوه مميلوكن
- سوڠڬوه مڠهاروكن

هل- هل يڠ سايا سوكا داري فيلم ايني ادله:
- وكتو ممباوا اديكڽا دالم ڤنچي
- وكتو ماسك ايكن باكر
- وكتو ممينتا سوسو

داري اول، تيڠه، سمڤاي اكهير سوڠڬوه مڠهاروكن، مميلوكن دان مڽنتوه.
Review by davidehrlich ★★½ 11

Capernaum was an ancient Israeli city where Jesus performed some of his most famous miracles — where even the most pitiable and destitute of people could be made whole. The word isn’t casually dropped into conversation all that often these days, but it’s still managed to outlive the city to which it was once attached: Colloquially, it can be used to describe a mess so large that it seems impossible to clean.

“Capernaum” is never uttered (or even alluded to) in Nadine Labaki’s new film of the same name, but this instant Cannes sensation — an astonishing work of social-realism that’s diluted (and ultimately defeated) by an array of severe miscalculations — manages to make good on both definitions. On…

Recent reviews

Review by Larry The Lobster ★★★★

This fucked me up more than A Serbian Film, not gonna lie.
Review by aymjoe ★★★★

Nadine Labaki does it one more time...
Review by Alencar Ferreira ★★★★★

Meu Deus que filme.... acho que o melhor filme que já vi esse ano por enquanto. E posso dizer que cada situação neste filme não é ficção, realmente acontece, ainda mais nestes países do oriente médio que sofrem severamente pelas guerras civis, fome e a miséria como um todo.

Lembro-me que em 2014 para 2015 houve uma imigração em massa de refugiados vindos da Síria em maior parte para o continente europeu em busca de uma vida melhor. Situações como fechamento de fronteiras na Hungria para conter os imigrantes, a jornalista que chegou a chutar um pai com seu filho no campo enquanto fugiam, o garotinho sírio na praia... são algumas de nos atingir profundamente.

Mas neste filme retrata fielmente as situações de vida precária deste povo, as escolhas que precisam tomar por um motivo maior, a sobrevivência, a indignação, e principalmente a esperança de sobreviver tudo isso e ter uma vida digna. Um dos melhores filmes que já vi.
Review by Paula ★★★★★

How can you translate love and pain into a movie in such a beautiful way? How can you make the audience feel what it feels to have your heart broken by a merciless society where the young and the poor are vulnerable and forgotten? Well, this movie does it in a brilliant way.

Capernaum is not only a movie, it's an experience. It's diving into an ocean of love, pain, regret, compassion and sadness. It's acknowledging that we, the humankind, are failing - failing as a species, as a society, as a civilization. Capernaum is a punch in the face of those who have no mercy for the poor, the misfits, those who become sometimes only numbers in governmental statistics.…
Review by Johnny ★★★

Kinda the anti-Shoplifters which is not a good thing
Review by hamed ★★★★½

zain deserves the entire world protect him at all costs
Review by marcela ★★★★★

i had a heart before this movie but now it’s just a pile of very tiny broken pieces sitting inside my chest.
Review by Luis Arroyo

Zain Al Rafeea es magnífico, da una de las interpretaciones más destacadas por un niño que yo haya visto.

La película está filmada magníficamente. Es una especie de mezcla entre Turtles Can Fly (2004), Dheepan (2015) y Slumdog Millionaire (2008). Siempre me tuvo al filo del asiento, sin embargo esta última parte donde comienzan con la llamada de Zain desde la cárcel me parece que está muy demás.

De pronto me parece que tonalmente algunos personajes pudieron estar un tanto más inclinados hacia lados opuestos. Es decir, Rahil (Yordanos Shiferaw) más contenida a ratos, sin estar llorando todo el tiempo.

Boluwatife Treasure Bankole actor revelación. Precioso.
Review by Fares Adel ★★★★★

Pain and more pain 💔

فيلم masterpiece بمعنى الكلمه
انا متاكد انا كل ما افتكر الفيلم ده هبكى اكتر ما بكيت فى اول مشاهده ليه
احنا فى السينما العربيه و المصريه بالذات محتاجين يتولع فيهم بعد ما تخليهم يشوفوا الفيلم ده و علشان يعرفوا ان اللى بيعملوه خرا

كفر ناحوم 5/5 ⁦♥️⁩