OSCARS 2024: Io Capitano (2023)

There's lots of things you could criticize the international wing of the Academy for. However, if nothing else, the International Feature Film category does often achieve what is more-or-less its intention: To bring films and voices from other countries far more attention than they would otherwise get. If not for the Oscars, I doubt many people would have seen “Io Capitano.” The film is Italy's submission into the category. It is a co-production between Italy, Belgium, and France. Filmed mostly in Senegal and Morocco, the director is Italian, the cast is largely Senegalese, and the story takes place all over Northern Africa. I would say that is a win for international representation and cooperation, if nothing else. 

Seydou and his cousin Moussa – whom he treats more like a brother – are two sixteen year old boys living in a small village in Dakar. They both dream of travelling to Europe and becoming singers, dancers, and musicians. Both have saved up enough money to make the trip, though Seydou's mother is horrified when he mentions the idea to her. He leaves in secret, the two boys travelling into the desert to get fake passports made. They have to bribe guards as they enter into Mali. They're loaded onto a truck with a dozen other people and begin a perilous trip across the Sahara desert. At the Libyan border, Seydou and Moussa are separated by soldiers with guns, demanding bribes. Unable to pay, Seydou arrives in a prison camp, faces torture and kidnapping, and eventually is sent to work on a rich man's home with an older craftsman. Thus begins Seydou's journey to Tripoli, where he hopes to be reunited with Moussa so they can finally make the final leg of their quest: On a boat packed full of other migrants, crossing the sea to Sicily.

The official synopsis of “Io Capitano” refers to it as a “Homeric fairy tale.” While the film is mostly telling an original story, inspired by the plight of real people travelling across Africa to Europe, there are often fascinating allusions to “The Odyssey.” The boys being driven across the desert, crammed into the bed of a pick-up truck with a whole crowd of people, being tossed about by the unhinged driving, recalls the hazards of Charybdis and Scylla. A ill woman calling Seydou away from the desert guide is a vague echo of the sirens. The warden in the Libyan prison has a glass eye, an obvious homage to Polyphemus. Seydou's humiliation in the prison recalls Odysseus being a captive of Circe. The beautiful, veiled wife of the rich man has an air of Calypso about her. Once arriving in Tripoli, Seydou travels through an underground iron works, full of sparks and flames, like Odysseus passing through the underworld. When he finally finds Moussa, it almost seems like he's forgotten his cousin, as if he's been with the lotus eaters. 

The parallels between Seydou's journeys and Homer's epic add depth to this story. Yet “Io Capitano” is maybe most interesting when it incorporates its own elements of mysticism and magical realism into its story. Seydou misses his mother, much like how Odysseus misses Penelope. Yet the dream he has, of his mother floating over the desert, begging him to return home, is unique to this telling. There's a hint of Aeolus in the old wise man from the village, who appears to Seydou in a dream while he's in the prison. The scene that follows, in which an Icarus-like spirit travels back to the village to assure Seydou's mother that he's alright, speaks to the powerful melancholy that is central to this film. “Io Capitano” blends classical mythology with African spiritualism in service of telling a story rift with human emotions like regrets and longing. 

This fusion of specific cultural struggles with archetypal narratives shows us that myth-making and storytelling know no borders. “Io Capitano” is a story of brotherhood, tested but never forgotten. No matter how severe the hardships Seydou faces, he never forgets Moussa. He searches ceaselessly for his cousin in Tripoli. When they are reunited, the other boy has a bullet hole in his leg and wants to return home. It is up to Seydou to carry him, to give him the strength not to give up. It's a classical story, of the bond between two boys that pushes them through all sorts of challenges. 

If “Io Capitano” partakes in the world-wide known narrative of two best friends on an adventure, it touches on another Campbellian monomyth. That would be the boy rising from unassuming roots, to become a man and then a hero. Seydou Sarr plays the eponymous, showing such a naturalistic charisma that he could easily be an international star some day. He faces horrors but pushes through, showing courage he didn't know he had. He meets a mentor, the old stone mason, who gives him the skills he'll need to survive this journey. All the while, he is gripped with uncertainty, forced into situations he's not prepared for. Yet he perseveres, captaining a boat full of the sick and homeless on a journey across unknown waters. The final moments has Seydou fully evolving into his role as an adult survivor. There's a reason stories like this have been carried in the human soul as long as stories have existed. They resonated in a deep place.

Honestly, my only disappointment with “Io Capitano” is that it could've been a little longer. I would have liked to have seen Moussa's own journey, that brought him back to his cousin in the Libyan big city. The “Odyssey” parallels could have been taken further. The boys will surely confront new challenges once they are in Italy, other people trying to achieve their dream of being singers and dancers. Much like how, upon returning to Ithaca, Odysseus had to fight off the suitors squatting in his home. I don't know what the equivalent to shooting an arrow through a row of axes would be though... You know a movie is good when it runs two hours and you wish it had an extra hour or two more. If you can consider “Io Capitano” a Senegalese film – I would – it's the second film from Senegal I've seen. The first was “Saloum,” which was also excellent. Meaning I need to see more films from this country, if this is any indication of their overall quality. [9/10]