Maybe essentially the most polarizing problem in American politics is against the law immigration and the disaster on the United States-Mexico border, a debate that many imagine may resolve the presidential election in November. It’s an analogous scenario in Europe, the place a surge in migration from Africa has fueled an increase in right-wing anti-immigration events.
Matteo Garrone’s Oscar-nominated “Io Capitano” doesn’t take sides in these debates, however in depicting the harrowing journey of two 16-year-old Senegalese boys and their willingness to try a harmful journey to Italy, he means that the problem received’t go away.
The movie is impressed by Mamadou Kouassi, a migrant from Ivory Coast who made an analogous journey and now works with migrants in Castel Volturno, an impoverished metropolis close to Naples, Italy, the place hundreds of African migrants reside.
“Io Capitano” tells the story of Seydou (Seydou Sarr) and Moussa (Moustapha Fall), who’re finest pals dwelling in Dakar. Seydou and his youthful sister assist his widowed mom run a sidewalk trinkets stand. They reside beneath the poverty line, with little prospect of a vibrant future.
The boys have inventive minds and dream of being rap artists — they will flip something right into a music, together with the mom’s offended phrases when Seydou comes dwelling late: “I’ve been in search of you/ You didn’t see my calls” turns into a catchy tune. They really feel they will reach Europe … if they will get there, the place “white folks will need our autograph.”
They plan for months, save what little cash they will, after which it’s time to go. Sneaking off with out their mom’s approval, they board a bus and start a nightmare journey throughout Mali, Niger and Libya to achieve a jumping-off level someplace alongside the Mediterranean shore.
Garrone, an Italian finest identified for his 2008 debut, the Mafia-themed “Gomorrah,” employs the strategies of Neorealism — the post-World Conflict II low-budget motion that introduced vivid depictions of working-class struggles to worldwide audiences in movies similar to “Rome, Open Metropolis” and “Bicycle Thieves.”
Seydou and Moussa turn into victims of a series of black marketeers who embrace drivers, border patrol troopers on the take, human traffickers and different opportunists who regard human life as low-cost.
At one level, because the boys zip throughout an unlimited desert on the again of a rickety pickup truck crammed with fellow migrants, one man falls off. “Return! Return!” the boys yell. “I advised you guys to hold on,” admonishes the driving force, who retains dashing alongside to maintain to his schedule, leaving the person who fell off to sure dying.
The late movie critic Roger Ebert referred to as motion pictures an “empathy machine,” and “Io Capitano” stands as Garrone’s plea for empathy in a debate that sorely lacks it. Ultimately, it will appear, good immigration insurance policies will should be a compromise between two ideological extremes.
It doesn’t matter whether or not you imagine Seydou and Moussa have a case to be admitted as European immigrants or whether or not they need to be deported again to Senegal. Not less than you stroll of their footwear for a bit.
Attain G. Allen Johnson: ajohnson@sfchronicle.com
“Io Capitano”: Drama. Starring Seydou Sarr, Moustapha Fall and Issaka Sawadogo. Directed by Matteo Garrone. In French and Senegalese with English subtitles. (Not rated. 121 minutes. ) Begins Friday, Feb. 23, at AMC Metreon, 135 Fourth St., S.F. amctheatres.com; Landmark’s Opera Plaza, 601 Van Ness Ave., S.F. landmarktheatres.com
