Io capitano

Matteo Garrone: Io capitano (IT/BE/FR 2024).

IT/BE/FR 2024

Director: Matteo Garrone

Starring: Seydou Sarr, Moustapha Fall, Issaka Sawadogo

Languages: Wolof, French, Arabic, English

Subtitles: English

121 min

Festival premiere: 6 Sep 2023 Venice

Distributor: Edge Entertainment

In collaboration: Yle

In collaboration: Italian kulttuuri-instituutti / Istituto Italiano di Cultura

Love & Anarchy 37th Helsinki International Film Festival (HIFF) 2024: African Express

Viewed at Kinopalatsi 7, Helsinki, Sunday 22 Sep 2024

HIFF 2024: "Italy's Academy Award-nominee follows African refugees on a treacherous journey across deserts and seas."

Wendy Ide quoted by HIFF 2024: "Hope and fantasy coexist so closely in Io Capitano, Matteo Garrone’s wrenching Oscar-nominated account of the journey of two teenage Senegalese migrants towards a new life in Europe, that you start to wonder if the film is arguing that hope is a fantasy. Whether the better future that tempts 16-year-old Seydou (Seydou Sarr) and his cousin Moussa (Moustapha Fall) on to the perilous trip across the Sahara and the Mediterranean is no more substantial than the mirage of a floating woman that Seydou hallucinates in the desert. But in fact this is a film that, for all its brutal horrors, keeps a kernel of hope and faith in the inherent decency of humankind (or some of it at least)." Wendy Ide, The Observer

Leslie Felperin quoted by HIFF 2024: "Indelibly played by non-professional Seydou Sarr, offering a remarkably mature performance, he makes his way with his cousin (Moustapha Fall) from their home in West Africa across thousands of miles on a quest to reach Europe. Taking viewers with him every step of the way, it’s a journey that inevitably burns away Seydou’s childish innocence. Garrone, however, almost never puts a foot wrong with this painstakingly composed work, an adventure peppered by moments of nauseating horror but also ravishing beauty and grace." Leslie Felperin, The Hollywood Reporter

HIFF 2024: "Italian Oscar-ehdokas vie katsojan afrikkalaisten pakolaisten vaaralliselle matkalle aavikon halki ja meren yli."

Otto Kylmälä (HIFF 2024): "Senegalilaiset serkukset Seydou ja Moussa haikailevat monien lailla Eurooppaan. Lukuisista varoituksista huolimatta 16-vuotiaita ei pelota vaarallinen matka tuntemattomaan, koska tähtäimessä on supertähteys musiikkialalla. Yön turvin pojat lähtevät salaa äideiltään ja perheiltään kohti seikkailua."

"Kauniit maisemat ja rullaavat bluespoljennot vaihtuvat pian kiristäjiin ja orjakauppiaisiin matkan vaikeutuessa. Ylitettyään pakolaisten hautausmaaksi muuttuneen Saharan autiomaan pojat saapuvat Libyaan, jossa heidät erotetaan toisistaan. Pian serkun löytämisestä tulee Seydoulle yhtä tärkeää kuin Italiaan pääsemisestä. Seydoun suurimpana haasteena odottaa kuitenkin täyteen lastatun pakolaislaivan ajaminen turvallisesti Italiaan."

"Ohjaaja-käsikirjoittaja Garrone on usein kuronut elokuvillaan umpeen realismin ja fantasian kuilua. Puhtaasti fantasiamaailmaan sijoittuvat elokuvat sisältävät totuuden siemenen ja kaikkein realistisimmat elokuvat ripauksen taikaa. Jo debyytissään Vieraalla maalla (1997) pakolaisten kokemusta kuvannut Garrone tuo Io Capitanossa pakolaisten matkan autenttiseen kuvaukseen keventävää lyyrisyyttä ja maagista realismia."

"Elokuva on monella tapaa matka, jonka jälkeen katsoja on yhtä kokemusta rikkaampi." Otto Kylmälä

AA: I have been hearing great buzz on Matteo Garrone's Io capitano, and it meets and exceeds my expectations. It is a great work of art, one of the true solid masterpieces of the recent years. Strong, violent and honest, it signals a faith in human dignity that can overcome and transcend the brutality experienced during the calvary in Sahara desert, Tripoli torture chambers and the Mediterranean Sea.

Garrone has discussed immigration with a sense of urgency since his debut feature film Terra di mezzo. I am ashamed to confess that I have seen only one previous film by the director, Dogman. Which is a strong piece of cinema, but Io capitano is on an incomparably higher level of accomplishment.

Indeed, Io capitano rises to the number of the greatest ever Italian immigration films such as Terraferma (Emanuele Crialese) and Fuocoammare (Gianfranco Rosi). Compared with them, Io capitano is distinguished by its profound human qualities. The focus is on two Senegalese teenage boys and a whole bunch of immigrants under the responsibility of the 16-year-old Seydou. 

Where Terraferma and Fuocoammare take place on the Italian sea frontier, Io capitano is a saga of the full odyssey from home to the strange new shores. It is a thrilling and violent adventure story, a suspense thriller and a well-made play. We meet the worst of humanity, and the best. The youngsters display a grandeur of spirit and solidarity, helping each other and those in deepest distress.

Io capitano is also a great coming-of-age story. "Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them" (Shakespeare, Twelfth Night). Seydou, who has never sailed and cannot even swim, is ordered to take over the captain's helm on a dismal, overcrowded boat meant to take the immigrants to Sicily. A shipwreck seems inevitable.

Visually Io capitano is grandiose, catching the luminosity of African light in Dakar, the merciless heat of the Sahara (doubled by Merzouga). the cruel torture in the hands of Libyan organized crime in Tripoli (doubled by Casablanca) and the uncanny Mediterranean Sea negotiated by Africans who have never sailed before.

"Pieniä on meijän murheet" ["small are our worries"] is my main impression viewing this magnificent movie in our tiny idyllic Finnish lintukoto [bird shelter].