Review: 'Io Capitano' lets viewers see the harrowing journey of African migrants to Europe — and confronts us with their humanity
Roger Ebert’s maxim, that movies are “a machine that creates empathy,” is embodied in its truest sense in “Io Capitano,” director Matteo Garrone’s stunningly realized story of one immigrant’s harrowing journey. (It’s one of the nominees for the Academy Award in the International Film category.)
Seydou (played by newcomer Seydou Sarr) is 16, living with his mom (Khady Sy) and many sisters in Senegal. He sometimes sneaks away from the house to join his cousin, Moussa (Moustapha Fall), to work the occasional construction jobs — and then take the money earned and stash it.
What they’ve made in six months, Moussa tells Seydou, is enough to pay for their passage from Senegal to Europe, where they believe they will find a better life. And even though Seydou’s mother forbids Seydou from making the trip, Seydou and Moussa head out anyway, intent on crossing half of Africa to get to the Mediterranean.
The trip starts on a crowded bus, then in the back of a pickup truck bounding over hills so fast that one migrant falls off and is left behind. More are left for dead on the next leg, walking across the dunes of the Sahara. Those who make it this far then run into a new danger: Libyan gangsters holding them for ransom. And so on, to the final part of the journey — crossing the Mediterranean in a broken-down boat with an engine spewing toxic smoke.
The audience, like Seydou, has no idea what’s going to happen next during his journey. We soon feel every bit of the fear he’s feeling, as well as the humility when he meets the occasional friendly person who would rather help than exploit him. And we watch as Seydou figures out that he must grow up in a hurry, because it’s not just his life that’s on the line.
Garrone — familiar to fans of Italian film for his 2008 Mafia epic “Gomorrah” and his 2017 take on “Pinocchio” (with Roberto Benigni as Geppetto) — and his team of writers seep viewers in the tiny details of this tortuous migration (like how most Senegalese teen boys wear very worn European soccer jerseys). Garrone also mixes in moments of magical realism that show us how Seydou try to process the hell he’s enduring.
“Io Capitano” shows us the humanity of those migrants desperate enough, because of oppression or economics, to risk their lives to make such a trip. After too many seasons where the word “immigrant” is a label on undifferentiated figures in a news story or a hate-filled punchline in a political speech, Garrone’s greatest service is the bracing reminder that these are people just like us.
——
‘Io Capitano’
★★★1/2
Opens Friday, March 8, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City). Not rated, but probably R for violence, language and perilous situations. Running time: 122 minutes; in Wolof and French, with subtitles.