Capernaum is a 2018 Lebanese film by Nadine Labaki. It won the Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. It is a 2019 nominee for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
The protagonist is Zain, a (seemingly) 12-year-old boy born into poverty. The film starts In Medias Res with Zain serving a 5-year sentence for stabbing a man. In prison, he decided to sue his parents for giving birth to him condemning him to a life of poverty. The movie moves back and forth between the courtroom and Zain's story, uncovering the reasons why he attempted murder and took his parents into the court.
Capernaum shows the following tropes:
- Abusive Parents: Zain's parents frequently hit and yell at their children and sell their 11-year-old daughter as a child bride. At one point Zain's parents argue about the idea of sending their kids to school, but not because any of them sees any value in them having an education: Selim outright thinks it's a waste of time and Souad can only think about the goods they can obtain by doing so.
- Adults Are Useless: To Zain, they definitely are. They are either abusive or apathetic, save for Rahil (who has too many problems of her own) and the lawyer, eventually.
- Arranged Marriage: Sahar is married off to Assad against her will. The fact that she's only 11 when this happens makes everything much worse.
- Big Brother Instinct: A defining trait of Zain. He will hurt if you do anything to his siblings (real or adopted).
- Bittersweet Ending: Zain is still in jail, his parents are having another child and Sahar is dead. But Zain was at least instrumental in helping Rahil reunite with Yonas and he receives his very first ID.
- Dead Guy Junior: When Zain learns about his mother's pregnancy, she tells him that, if the baby is a girl, they'll name her Sahar, after Zain's deceased sister. Zain is disgusted by that decision, as his parents seem to not feel any remorse about being partially responsible for Sahar's death.
- Distinguishing Mark:
- Rahil's mole on her face that is actually fake and painted everyday with makeup so Rahil's face will match the picture in the documents Aspro forged for her.
- Aspro has heterochromia, with one brown eye and one blue eye. In the end, this makes it easier for the police to find him, because it's the only trait Zain could recall about him that made Aspro easily identifiable.
- How We Got Here: Starts with 12-year-old Zain suing his parents, then goes back to recount the events that led to this.
- The Illegal: Rahil, an Ethiopian woman who is in the country illegally. She gets knocked up and Zain, a boy himself, tries to take care of her and her baby.
- It's Personal: Zain takes revenge for his sister when she dies during childbirth by stabbing her husband.
- No Periods, Period: Averted. Sahar having her first period is significant to the story because it means that now she can conceive children and be married off to Assad. Zain spends part of the film trying to help Sahar hide her menstruation by cleaning her bloodied shorts and underwear, and by telling her where to hide her used pads.
- Old Man Marrying a Child: Downplayed because Assad is not really old, but he's still a full grown man marrying an 11 years old girl that just had her first period.
- Pædo Hunt: Old Man Marrying a Child situations aside, at the beginning of the film, an adult man Zain has to deliver goods to is shown trying to molest the 12 years old boy.
- Parental Abandonment: One day, Rahil leaves her house and never returns. She was arrested for being undocumented, and can't tell anyone about Yonas' existence in fear that the baby will be taken away from her. Mother and son are reunited at the end of the film, however.
- Practically Different Generations: At the beginning of the film, Zain and his mother visit his older brother in prison, that seems to be already a legal adult, while Zain also has siblings that are still toddlers and by the end of the film, Souad becomes pregnant again. Justified because of the implication that Souad had her first child when she was around Zain's age.
- Promotion to Parent: After Rahil is arrested for being an illegal emigrant in Lebanon Zain takes up the task of taking care of Yonas, despite only being 12.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Despite being Wise Beyond Their Years, Zain is still a 12 years old and at times he doesn't know how to properly take care of baby Yonas. An example of this is the time Zain tries to feed Yonas with baby formula mixed with nothing, giving him just the powder.
- Street Smart: Zain is shown as a clever kid who knows his way around the city and is careful not to be manipulated.
- Teen Pregnancy: Played for drama.
- Sahar gets pregnant shortly after being married off to Assad, but suffers from complications and dies because the hospital didn't take her in due to her lack of documents. It's heavily implied that the complications of Sahar's pregnancy happened because she got pregnant at a very young age.
- It's implied that Souad also had her first child little time after starting puberty.
- Traumatic Haircut: At one point Rahil sells a huge part of her hair so she can pay Aspro to forge her new documents.
- Unperson: Having a legal identity is a leitmotif. Without documents you're as good as dead, you have no rights and cannot even leave the country.
- Vague Age: Zain is in his preteen years but he doesn't know his exact age, and not even his parents bothered remembering what his exact birthdate is. At the beginning of the film, a doctor examines Zain and determines that he must be around 12, but there's no way to know with 100% certainty.
- Wise Beyond Their Years: Zain is a smart kid who despite his age is able to read the intentions and actions of adults around him.
