Io Capitano
Tell me, Muse, of the man of many ways, who was driven far journeys…
Directed by Matteo Garrone
Italy, 2023
If only one man dies of hunger, that is a tragedy. If millions die, that’s only statistics.
This famous line, often attributed to Joseph Stalin, underscores a grim reality: over the past 15 years, more than 27,000 migrants have perished crossing the Mediterranean Sea from North Africa to Europe. In Io Capitano, Italian director Matteo Garrone shifts the focus to one individual who attempts that crossing: Seydou, a sixteen-year-old boy from Senegal, portrayed with extraordinary depth by newcomer Seydou Sarr.
What makes Garrone’s film distinct is that the director has chosen to frame a naturalistic narrative, based on a true story, as a Homeric quest. This is evident from the opening of the film in Dakar, Senegal where Seydou lives with his care-worn widowed mother (Ndeye Khady Sy) and boisterous younger sisters. His world is a vibrant one, full of life: women wearing clothes like brilliant plumage fall about laughing as they gather at the wheezing water pump, a kaleidoscope of boys wearing European football tops chase balls across the red earth, and the sound of Malian pop pulses from mobile phones.
Seydou and his cousin Moussa (Moustapha Fall) work hard, make money, and play football. A celebration in the evening shows the pair joyfully playing drums as the local women, including Seydou’s mother, dance the night away in a sequence of feverish ecstasy.
The question is, why would he want to leave this life behind? He is neither fleeing poverty or running from war. Instead, like many young people across the world, he is chasing a dream. In a globalised age where your phone brings you Champions League football and tracks the latest YouTube influencers, the promise of the West has a tremendous pull. Whereas the Greek heroes had visions of the gods of Olympus, Seydou and Moussa are seduced by visions from TikTok and Instagram.
They seek out Sisko, a man with connections to the people smugglers. Surprisingly, he tries to dissuade them:
If I were you I wouldn’t go. Do you think Europe is better than Africa?
Europe is nothing like you imagine. What you see on TV is not real.
In Europe it’s really cold. There are so many people sleeping on the streets.
Sisko’s words of warning fail to deter them however, and after receiving an optimistic blessing from the local shaman they leave – without telling Seydou’s mother. The boys set off from Dakar with plenty of money but, unsurprisingly, fake passports and corrupt border guards quickly drain them of their funds. Joining a troupe of fellow travellers moving from Senegal to Mali, then to Niger, as they cross the Sahara the camera’s field of view opens up to reveal the stunning golden light of the desert expanse. But what starts out as a thrilling jeep-ride across the dunes becomes a flight of horror when one of the passengers falls off the vehicle. There is no turning back and he is left for dead. Reality bites.
That brutality is reinforced as they trek across the desert on foot, the trail punctuated by the corpses of those who couldn’t keep up. One woman in the group – with a resemblance to Seydou’s mother – struggles, and falls behind. “Aidez-moi! Aidez-moi!” she cries, as she collapses through exhaustion. Seydou wants to save her but really there is nothing he can do. Moussa beckons him onward. And then, just at that moment Garrone cuts through the realism. Seydou finds the woman floating in the air alongside him, her green dress iridescent against the sandscape. She could be an African Athena… but of course, she is a mirage.
Heat, fatigue, thirst… Our two innocents were not prepared for this and worse is to follow. The sudden arrival of the Libyan security forces sends them spiralling down into a pit of despair. Abruptly separated from his cousin, Seydou ends up in a hellhole of a prison that doubles as a torture chamber. Here Garrone averts his eyes, sparing us the worst, although what we see is harrowing enough. Following a visual ellipsis, Seydou appears beaten, bloody and seemingly broken. His survival seems improbable until a fatherly fellow-prisoner takes him under his wing.
Eventually, Seydou arrives in Libya’s capital, Tripoli, where the mythic element of his journey comes to the fore. He is reunited with his cousin and then becomes Odysseus, piloting a boat swollen with migrants across the sea to Italy. Selected for the job as the people smugglers who provide the boats consider his age an advantage:
As you’re 16, you’re a minor… if the police catch you, you don’t risk much.
Io Capitano - me, the Captain - indeed.
That this film was made by an Italian director has led to questions about the ownership of migrant narratives. Yet Garrone has been upfront about this and relied on the contributions of migrants from writing the script through to filming:
I’m Italian, I’m white. This is not my world. There was of course a risk of getting it wrong, or of seeming like I was exploiting it.
Much of the script is spoken in Wolof – one of Senegal’s many native languages – and if the film succeeds in humanising the people behind the headlines and the statistics, this is in no small part due to the compelling performances by a largely nonprofessional cast.
As for Seydou himself, this odyssey may have reached its end, but in Italy another other one is just beginning.
The battle against immigration is an epochal battle for Italy and Europe – Giorgia Meloni, Prime Minister of Italy.
Reids’ Results (out of 100)
C - 79
T - 81
N - 84
S - 76
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Coming next… The Man Without a Past(2002)
Maybe the third most overrated movie this year, after 'Mad Max' and 'The Substance'. It bugs me that movies that align with liberal values tend to be rated more than they're worth. Yeah, you could say that's subjective, but I argue that 'Ru', from Canada, is a more profound immigrant movie, and Matteo Garrone's previous 'Dogman' was his better work.