Capernaum

Nadine Labaki's Capernaum opens with one of the most arresting premises in recent cinema: Zain (Zain Al Rafeea), a 12-year-old boy serving a five-year sentence for stabbing someone, has decided to sue his parents. His crime: "for giving me life."

What follows is a flashback that feels like a documentary but moves like a thriller. Zain lives in a Beirut slum with his parents and multiple siblings. When his 11-year-old sister is sold into marriage to the local landlord, Zain runs away and ends up caring for the toddler son of an undocumented Ethiopian refugee. The scenes of Zain — a child himself — dragging a potty-training toddler through the streets of Beirut are simultaneously comic and horrifying.

Al Rafeea, a Syrian refugee discovered by Labaki on the streets of Beirut, had never acted before. His performance is extraordinary: feral intelligence, exhausted compassion, an anger that could power a city. When he finally delivers his statement in court — "Please don't have children if you can't take care of them" — you believe him, because you have seen what he has seen.