Asher Luberto
Io Capitano is the rarest of cinematic adventures, the kind of journey that feels larger than life yet remains distinctly human. Directed by Metteo Garrone (Gamorrah) with a sweeping grandeur, Io Capitano is an immigrant story of epic proportions, a beautiful film that spans a number of different locales.
The film starts out in the streets of Senegal–a city that has more garbage than people—and proceeds to cross several continents with ease. Before things get going, our protagonist questions whether he should sneak into another country. His mother (Khady Sy) doesn’t think so, warning him of the dangers of entering another country illegally, but there wouldn’t be much of a movie if Seydou (Seydou Sarr) decided to stay at home and do nothing.
He has dreams of becoming a rapper, after all, which isn’t going to happen if he continues to live with his family in a shack. So he convinces his cousin (Moustapha Fall) to come with him, hopping on a bus in the middle of nowhere for a voyage that will take them to Sahara, Libya and then eventually Italy. If they don’t get killed first.
The first sign of danger comes when a man falls out of a flatbed truck, tumbling down a hill as the driver continues forward. When Seydou pipes up, the driver screams and drives even faster. Immigrants are just packages for these handlers to deliver, not human beings looking for opportunities elsewhere. Who cares if one goes missing? As long as the majority make it to their destination, they’ve completed their task.
It’s heartbreaking to watch Seydou come to the realization that he’s just a piece of luggage, a disposable object that can arrive with bumps, bruises and blisters on the doorstep of some foreign land. Like so many immigrant dramas, Io Capitano throws us into the spaces these characters inhabit, from the rusty flatbeds of a truck to the vast sands of a desert. Seydou traverses a number of different landscapes, each more intimidating than the last.
There’s a touch of magical realism to his struggle, as the line between fact and fantasy gets lost in a desert mirage. There’s a dreamlike haze that shows up in the Sahara section, when Seydou dreams of saving someone who had previously perished. But ultimately Io Capitano remains grounded in reality, in the harsh truths of the immigration process and the sea of obstacles Seydou must swim through to find a better home.
Garrone uses documentary techniques to bring his odyssey to life. His style is distinctly Italian, imbued with neo-realist aesthetics that marked the post war era of Italian cinema (handheld cameras, non-actors, stories of lower class people trying to overcome their circumstances), and he manages make an almost unfathomable event seem like it’s happening before our very eyes.
It’s almost unbelievable that a journey like this could happen, that people could be going through this every day, in all parts of the world. Garrone wants us to face these issues head on so that we can understand their suffering. There’s a bracing sympathy to their plight, and by the time Seydou reaches the shores of Italy, you feel deeply for him and everyone else on the same weather-beaten path.