Capernaum Review (2018, director: Nadine Labaki)

Capernaum is a Lebanese film in the Arabic language from director Nadine Labaki and was one of five films nominated for Best Foreign Language film at this year’s Oscars.

It’s a sad and often heartbreaking, yet also hopeful movie about a 12-year-old boy who sues his parents for giving birth to him. They live in poverty in the city of Beirut, located in the Middle Eastern country of Lebanon. Nothing is sugar-coated as Capernaum is realistic, emotional and never cheesy or overdramatic. Labaki’s film deals with social issues like refugees, but avoids being preachy or manipulative. 

The boy’s parents are abusive, but are shown as real human beings instead of cartoonishly evil villains. The film could certainly be seen as depressing and it’s far from a comedy, but it still has quite a few moments of humor. These different tones are deftly managed and don’t feel jarring.

The protagonist Zain, like most of the cast, was not a professional actor before this, which makes his excellent performance even more impressive. The actor, whose name is also Zain was a Syrian refugee who is now settled in Norway. The other casts member similarly have real-life circumstances similar to their characters, which certainly lends an air of authenticity as well as blurring the line between fiction and reality.

I also have to mention the incredibly adorable baby who is given tons of screentime and a crucial role, something you don’t often see. The filmmakers did a great job of getting realistic reactions out of the 18-month old, which I’d imagine is incredibly difficult.

The story is told in a somewhat nonlinear fashion and the courtroom scenes serve as an effective framing device. Capernaum is paced well as it moves along quickly and has no boring parts.

Shot on an Arri Alexa, the cinematography is solid and often handheld and shot from near Zain’s perspective. Not much of it particularly stood out to me, other than the gorgeous top-down drone shots of the city.

Lebanon doesn’t have much of a film industry so it’s nice to see them get nominated for the Best Foreign Film Oscar two years in a row. I still haven’t seen Germany’s Never Look Away, but of the other nominees, this has the most traditional and accessible narrative. It’s definitely not on the level of Roma, but I’d say it’s roughly comparable in terms of quality to Shoplifters or Cold War.

Critics are quite happy with Capernaum and it has an 84% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It also won the Jury Prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

Velvet Buzzsaw Review (2019, director: Dan Gilroy)

Velvet Buzzsaw is a Netflix exclusive supernatural horror film set in the Los Angeles art scene. It comes from writer-director Dan Gilroy, who was also responsible for the Denzel Washington drama Roman J. Israel, Esq. and more notably the Oscar-nominated 2014 film Nightcrawler. Velvet Buzzsaw brings back two major actors from Nightcrawler as well as the cinematographer and editor but unfortunately pales in comparison.

Nightcrawler was an incisive examination of media, and Velvet Buzzsaw tries to do the same thing with the art world. It starts to explore some interesting ideas, but just doesn’t really have anything insightful to say and is far from subtle in saying it.

The movie starts off somewhat promising but basically turns into a generic slasher-esque film halfway through. I have no problem with gory horror, but in addition to failing at satire, Velvet Buzzsaw also doesn’t work as horror. It’s not scary or creepy and the kills aren’t particularly noteworthy. The story is bland and there no good reveals or twists.

The performances are also a massive step down from Nightcrawler. Even Jake Gyllenhaal, one of the best working actors, is incredibly over the top, and his goofy facial expressions make it feel almost like a parody. Rene Russo isn’t awful, but definitely has some scenes where her acting is shaky and flat. Other great actors like John Malkovich and Toni Collette are fine but are pretty much wasted.

None of the characters are that well-written and they often feel like caricatures. This is very minor nitpick, but a lot of them had ridiculous names, like Morf Vanderwalt and Vetril Dease.

The film’s visual style is also unimpressive. While there are a few creative shots here and there, the look is overall quite generic. No technical aspect of the film stands out.

Velvet Buzzsaw’s pacing is a bit off as the beginning is a little slow, and then it just becomes a rapid succession of murders. It has a reasonable runtime of under two hours but still feels long.

Unfortunately, this seems to be following the odd trend of underwhelming Netflix exclusives from talented directors, like Jeremy Saulnier’s Hold the Dark, Gareth Evans’ Apostle, and Duncan Jones’ Mute. Of course, there are exceptions like Roma and The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, but this is still an issue for some reason.

Despite being free, I honestly can’t recommend this to any group of film fans. Horror fans will likely find this to be something they’ve seen tons of times before, and those looking for a more serious drama will be bored by the second half. I can’t even suggest this to fans of the director as it’s easily his worst effort so far.

Critics seem to be a little more positive on the film than I was, giving it a 68% on Rotten Tomatoes.