Review of 'Io Capitano': a heartbreaking journey of African immigrants

Still basking in the glow of an evening dancing with her children, a Senegalese mother (Khady Sy) is preparing for bed when her 16-year-old son, Seydou (Seydou Sarr), confesses his desire to emigrate. She chides him for even considering such a dangerous journey, but as her tears flow, she knows it's too late to stop him.

That's the emotional opening of Italian director Matteo Garrone's moving and ultimately life-affirming “Io Capitano,” nominated for an Oscar for best international film, which diligently traces the teenager's grueling and potentially deadly odyssey from West Africa to the coast of Libya. There, in a port that separates its past from the promise of a future, thousands of people from across the African continent gather with the shared intention of crossing the Mediterranean to Europe.

Other acclaimed Italian productions (the 2016 documentary “Fire at Sea” or the drama “Terraferma”) have tackled the final leg of the passage through water. But Garrone is concerned about something that often escapes the headlines and statistics: the atrocities migrants endure on the ground to even get to that starting point, including crossing a desert. (Director of photography Paolo Carnera photographs the Sahara in wide shots dotted with barely discernible human figures, communicating its terrifying immensity.) Best known for his influential crime saga “Gomorrah,” Garrone wrote the screenplay based on real-life accounts from multiple individuals who survived to tell the story of his unfathomable perseverance.

None of this is yet known to the lively Seydou, who dreams of becoming a musician, and his cousin Moussa (Moustapha Fall), who encourages his more cautious friend to act. The boys have saved for months to pay for the trip. Not entirely unlike his portrayal of the young men in “Gomorrah,” Garrone foregrounds their brotherly bond as a driving force amid increasingly daunting obstacles. There is an endearing purity to their goal of escaping together.

At each stop on the harrowing journey, someone different can win financially. It is an economy driven by suffering, including extortion, torture and a modern variation on slavery, all of which arise from migrants' desperation not only to move on but to not become another nameless body found far from home. (And if you think this is just a “foreign” problem, the American public doesn't need to look too far south to find comparable examples of dehumanization.)

Throughout the unspeakable cruelty (and some acts of kindness), young Sarr projects unquenchable hope, clinging to the belief that something worthwhile may await him across the water, on the shores of Italy. It is largely due to his revelatory performance, charged with unwavering fortitude, that a viewer can bear to watch “Io Capitano.” To think that this is Sarr's acting debut boggles the mind. (Deservedly, he won an award for emerging actors at the Venice International Film Festival, where “Io Capitano” premiered.)

Garrone also has an affinity for the fantastical, as seen in his darkly fabled “Tale of Tales” or a 2019 version of “Pinocchio,” and is evident in a pair of dream sequences that gracefully elevate the narrative to a level. spiritual. One of them offers an exhausted woman in the desert the power to fly. She does not weigh on the unforgiving sand. Another episode shows an angel delivering a message of repentance to Seydou's mother.

Yet for all the evil on display, Garrone never loses sight of the solidarity among immigrants amid their constant exploitation: Seydou finds a life-saving father figure in Martin (Issaka Sawadogo), a family man. who is also on his way to Italy, and a community among his fellow travelers in the migrant shelters of Tripoli. His growing awareness of those around him infuses him with a kind of heroism.

Data on these immigrants can be obtained anywhere, but Garrone knows that the tool of film is more effective. By presenting these teenagers in all their fragility and strength, he comes as close as possible to making us feel how they felt. “Io Capitano” is as unwavering as it is full of empathy.