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A film – Io Capitano (I am Captain)

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Io Capitano – A film by Matteo Garrone – in cinemas April 5

I think this film is brilliant. Watching it took me right in beside two teenagers from Senegal on their journey to Europe .

The film begins in a crowded home, from which the two restless cousins emerge. Both are keen on improving their lot, and both of the young men are sure that Europe will give them the best chance to do so.

Matteo Garrone, the director, does not pass any kind of judgement in this film – he just lets us see. I found it an emotional watch, as from the first dusty bus journey it’s evident that the extortion faced by the youngsters will only going get worse … and it does. It’s horrific in parts, but balanced with a hope that stays with the story right to the end.

The stars of the show (Seydou Sarr and Moustapha Fall) are themselves from Senegal, and they speak in their mother tongue from the beginning of the film, with the languages around them changing as the story progresses through desert expanses, to an unspeakable prison, and on towards the coast. It’s a vivid, desperate story – human, hopeful, brutal, built on truth, and shown from an angle I’d never seen as intensely before.

If I had awards to hand out I’d give them to this film. I hope you might get the chance to see it.

Here is a link to more about the film.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2024

The Theory of Flight – Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu

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This book was a birthday gift. I’d never heard of the title before I received it, nor of the Zimbabwean author. I finished the book a few days ago, and have been thinking of it ever since.

One point to make right at the start is that I almost put the book down when I read the prologue, and realised that one of the story’s foundation stones is the shooting down of a passenger plane.

However … I read on, and I was fascinated. The writing is beautiful.

At the heart of the story is Genie – beautiful and defiant, and profoundly giving. She knows love and gentleness, and always holds true to those, despite the dislocation, disloyalty, and disease that follow her into adulthood. It is her life that links together the many other characters in the book who surround her, some intersecting with her only briefly or indirectly but each of them adding their own flawed humanity to the context through which Genie evolves.

That, for me, is the chewy soul of this book – the way it gives villains and heroes alike, lives and hopes and dreams. No person is right or wrong, regardless of whether they are navigating or inflicting trauma. They are simply revealed, their day to day sharply focused, but their roles smudged around the edges with magic realism. There is real trauma, but it is blurred in a way that spares the reader.

The impression I’ve been left with is of a book that is gentle, but also devastatingly powerful. I loved the writing, and would rate it as one of the most striking novels I’ve read by a Zimbabwean author.

(The copy I have is published by Catalyst Press. The novel was originally published by Penguin Books in South Africa in 2018. It won the Barry Ronge Prize for Debut Fiction in South Africa.)

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023

This was so worth the journey – The Holdovers

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“We cannot sacrifice our integrity on the altar of their entitlement.” Mr Hunham in The Holdovers

It’s cold, it’s Christmas and five assorted students in a private boarding school are doomed to spend the holiday on campus. Mr Hunham is their reluctant babysitter, and Mary Lamb their heartbroken caterer.

The plot sounds predictable, and I thought the whole thing would be too gooey for my liking. I was wrong. I loved this. David Hemingson’s writing is delivered so completely and so physically by the three leads – Mr Hunham (Paul Giamatti), Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa) and Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) – that I felt immersed from the start in the boys’ school. It’s all about personalities at the beginning and then gradually, thanks to the palette-subdued filming, the lack of mobile phones, and the occasional mention of the Vietnam War, it becomes clear that the story is set decades previously.

However, the question right at the heart of it has not changed over the decades – how will an old, and apparently unloved and boring teacher, be able to control the unhappy teenagers? The answer is revealed slowly, and made clearer by the removal of four of the group to leave only Angus, Mr Hunham and Mary. Over the rest of the film their stories emerge little by little, sometimes with a hint of ribbon and at others with a heart twanging sadness, but always the camera pulls out fast enough to keep the pace moving. Alexander Payne’s directing gives us a look at the loneliness of life, but he does not encourage us to wallow in pity for anyone, however sorry they feel for themselves … at least not until the goodbyes right at the end.

The film lasts a little under two hours. The score is gentle, and the settings simple and straightfoward. I found it an engrossing watch, my emotions flying this way and that, one minute laughing and the next minute sniffing. Thinking about it on my way home I wasn’t skipping down the street, but I did feel hopeful … and slightly stronger.

I found this article in Time magazine with more information about the film and the writer.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023