Seydou (Seydou Sarr) and his cousin, Moussa (Moustapha Fall) make the decision, against their parents’ will, to journey from their home in Dakar to Italy where they will find better work and opportunities to send money back home to support their families.  With fake passports and a handful of ever-dwindling cash, the boys make their trek across the Sahara desert, survive a brush-in with the Libyan mafia, and finally, the crossing of the Mediterranean Sea towards their new, more prosperous lives. 

Matteo Garrone premiered Io Capitano, his latest study on the lengths young people will go to help break out of poverty, at the Venice Film Festival.  Written in conjunction with Massimo Ceccherini, Massimo Gaudioso, and Andrea Tagliaferri, the 121-minute film was submitted by Italy to the Academy Awards, making it to the final ballot.  With Paolo Carnera’s cinematography that captures both the stunning beauty and harsh realities of the world and Andrea Farri’s constantly evolving score, Io Capitano is one of the most luscious and engaging films of the year despite the incredible brutality it puts on display. 

Led by two newcomers in Sarr and Fall, the arc of the film places a huge responsibility on both actors to deliver nuanced performances lest the film become a parade of trauma.  The two young actors play very well off of each other and their mutual support throughout their trials is a delight to see even despite the horror of it all.  There is a brotherhood and camaraderie which flows through the film and as long as Seydou and Moussa have each other, nothing can stop them.  Garrone carefully builds this relationship so that when the boys do get separated by the mafia just shy of the halfway point, we feel a sense of incredible isolation along with Seydou. 

Through the machinations of the plot and Garrone’s decision not to split time after the boys are sent to different prisons, Io Capitano can really be seen as Sarr’s vehicle alone to manage.  Sarr is a revelation in the role, turning in an impeccable and nuanced performance of a boy turned into a man on his journey to a better life for both him and his family.  The fun and excitement of the trip – one the boys always knew was going to be dangerous – slowly fades over the first half of the film as they begin to realize how much more difficult this crossing is actually going to be.  Sarr, however, through the horrors he witnesses, maintains this boyish timbre to his voice so that even when he is scared and at some of his lowest moments, there is a spark of exuberance that never gets extinguished.  It also helps audiences remember that he is just a teenager facing off against a harsh world and when he transitions to being the one in the pair that is more focused and committed to completing this journey, we are roused by his optimism. 

Io Capitano, though, gives audiences and Seydou a bit of a salve as it plumbs the darker avenues of the immigration journey through moments of dreamlike magic.  A songwriter by hobby, Seydou is a creative young man, and when he is at his lowest points in the film, he often retreats to his imagination to help him move forward.  We see it play out in these simple yet beautiful moments of magic realism that helps to support Garrone’s log line that this film is a Homeric journey, albeit in reverse as Seydou is traveling away from his home to new territory, not for war but for settlement.  In this tale, the dangers are all real, rather it is many of the benevolent characters – what few there are – that exist in the ether.   

Often, Seydou interacts with these beings as part of a test of character.  The first and most major one is when one of the women in their on-foot caravan through the Sahara Desert collapses from heat exhaustion.  Seydou turns back to try and help the woman, offering her some of his water, but it is too late.  Moussa stands between them and the caravan moving farther and farther away, desperate to get back with them before they too become lost in the desert.  Eventually, Seydou leaves the woman to return to the group.  As they walk, he imagines their destination just over the dunes, close enough that he can return to help the woman, who, upon his lifting her up to help her walk begins to float in the air, led by his hand.  It is a pretty incredible moment and a bold, creative swing by Garrone who until now has kept the film quite grounded, but this shift does not alienate the audience.  Unlike the oftentimes transactional exchanges between journeying characters in the epics of which the film is loosely inspired, the woman does not aid him in any physical or material way – healing his cuts or providing him with resources – but she does help him maintain his link to his own humanity. 

Later, the film employs this tactic again but this time it is Seydou who is being led by an Angel back home to see his mother.  It is in the final scene, however, that Garrone really begins to blend the line of what is real, what is imagined, and what is unknown.  Through a turn of events leading up to the third act, Seydou is put in charge of the boat that will carry the migrants from Tripoli to Italy because, should the boat be intercepted, his young age will carry a less severe punishment.  Needless to say, the boy is nervous placed as the steward of not only his own life, but the lives of what looks to be easily 100 other lives aboard the barely seaworthy vessel.  In the same way that Odysseus’ seafaring voyage was fraught with trial, so too was Seydou’s, but the boy proves to be a natural navigator, steering his way into Italian waters.  Here, Garrone, in the final moments of the film, employs a flair in the filmmaking that we have recognized as being possibly a figment of the boy’s imagination: a Coast Guard helicopter overhead to help bring the boat to dock.  Carnera’s camera cuts away from the helicopter to hold on Seydou’s exhausted yet relieved face as he shouts “Io Capitano!” – “I am the captain!” – believing that help has arrived.  Each time they appear, these specters help point to what Seydou is most desiring – to leave the desert, to see his mother, to reach Italy – and it in turn always helps keep audiences focused on his goals and immediate needs as well even though those goals may still be quite far away.  In our seats, we may hope that this helicopter is a true harbinger of safety, but the filmic language with Garrone has established in this story leads to the harrowing realization of our doubts.   

Io Capitano is very reminiscent of Buoyancy (2019), but whereas Rodd Rathjen digs deeper into the tragedy of it all following a young Cambodian boy sold into slavery on a fishing vessel, Garrone allows Sedyou to be whisked away in those special flourishes of magic realism; an incredibly simple tactic that never lets the goals of the characters leave our sight and also gets to feature some wonderful costumes by Stefano Ciammitti.  The film is also a blending of Garrone’s interests; social strife and the magic of imagination.  Looking at two of his most renowned works, Gomorrah (2008) which follows a group of teens in gang-ruled Naples, and Pinocchio (2019), a story about trying to find where one fits into the larger society. Io Capitano is at the center of the crossroads for Garrone and as an immigration story, it shakes many of the conventions so that, like Sedyou, we never quite know who to trust either.  It is not a necessarily easy film to watch, but notably, it is not a total display of torture and misery, either.  Even in the darkest and most dire of times, we never lose hope so we do not shut down while this important film plays out.