Capernaum 2018 की एक Lebanese फिल्म है। जिसको डायरेक्ट किया है Nadine Labaki ने। Capernaum को Cannes Film Festival में 15 मिनट का standing ovation मिला था और ये अब तक की सबसे ज्यादा पैसे कमाने वाली Arabic फिल्म है। फिल्म में 12 साल के Syrian refugee child actor Zain Al Rafeea ने काम किया है। 

Disclaimer

I’m not writing this in any super exciting mental space. I’m writing this after almost two months of watching this movie. And since the last two months, I think I have thought about this movie every single day. I have thought quite a few times about writing an open letter but you know what? I just can’t. I just can’t get through this one decision of choosing a character.

Experience With Capernaum 

Capernaum was a recommendation by my brother and my sister in law. I rarely watch movies but they said enough to push me to watch it without having any opinions or expectations beforehand. All I was expecting from this movie was a terrible number of deaths with a very sad ending. But what I found was a very sensational story without any deaths.

Zain had me all mostly, during the movie. But the moment he took me away was when he educates Sahar about mensuration. And how unhesitatingly he washes her panties. And steals sanitary napkins from the same shop he works at. I was taken aback to see this happen in a place like that when I see women on an everyday basis either avoiding or getting hesitant while talking about mensuration to their fathers, brothers, sons, friends, and even partners.

“This world is a very cruel place”, I just couldn’t even slightly disagree. When Sahar is being taken away and just then Zain arrives. That struggle of this brother-sister duo made me so weak in the knees. For a second I just wished if I could help. Here, the boundaries of reality and cinema blur so badly.

Zain’s relationship with his parents is something where you can’t draw the line between right and wrong. An alcoholic father and a mother who gives birth to sell her female children, so, the rest of them can eat. Zain is obviously right for wanting to sue his parents for selling Sahar but they can’t be completely blamed for this. And when I saw Zain so angry at his parents about Sahar I felt how some wounds just never get better even when worse things happen to you.

Tigris is the sole character to make you believe,’ people have hearts’ but she alone can make your belief unalterable. Similarly, it is way too hard to believe that good happens to good people; when her life unfolds further.

I was my most helpless when Zain struggles to survive with Yonas. But a little girl who’s a Syrian refugee befriends Zain and makes it a tiny bit easier for Zain.

Little things which we people don’t even think about have become a struggle for these people. As much as this movie breaks you, it also keeps a flickering flame of hope alight.

This movie is that morsel of tears, anger, sadness, hope in your throat that you can neither spit out nor take it down.

And then, I read that Zain was himself a refugee but after doing Caphranuam he is now a star kid. You know what? Zain might be a refugee, a star kid but more than all this, he is hope. Hope to millions of people!

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अगर अच्छा cinema देखने का मन है तो Capernaum देखिए। ये Netflix पर available है। 

और फिर बताइए कैसी लगी?

तब तक देखते रहिए। पढ़ते रहिए। 

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