Io Capitano

Director: Matteo Garrone

30 June 2024

See

Teenage cousins Seydou (Seydou Sarr) and Moussa (Moustapha Fall) leave Senegal on an odyssey to Italy. They quickly realise the difference between their fantasy of making music in Europe were white people ask for their autographs, with the harsh realities of the journey taking them through deserts, past dangerous people preying on refugees and across the Mediterranean sea. 

Think

Seydou trying to tell his mother why he wants to leave was touching, as when he tried to help a woman who had fallen in the desert who reminded him of his mother. The magical realism of her flying over the sands holding his hand, and the folk messenger sent to relay Seydou’s mothers dreams of how he misses her was the visual highlight. But seeing the lowest moments of the fear on their faces when they realise the perils of soldier’s extorting people on a bus, how passengers fall off a 4WD as it crosses dunes but does not stop, prison and torture, and ofcourse masses of bodies languishing aboard a boat the most affecting scenes.

Feel

I’m interested in migrant stories, and this is as hyper-real as it gets. Beyond the closeness of the cousins, what spoke to me the most was the kindness of strangers, particularly the builder who takes Seydou under his wing. And how he goes in for a hug twice, when saying goodbye. 

After watching Io Capitano I was curious about the perspective of what happens next with African refugees plight in Italy, and came across Mohamed Mbougar Sarr. Born in 1990 in Dakar, Senegal, he studied literature in Paris. His book The Silence of the Choir, tells a comparable story. I’ve ordered a copy.