By John Corrado

The latest film directed by Italian filmmaker Matteo Garrone (Gomorrah), the Oscar-nominated International Feature Io Capitano largely serves as a dramatization of the challenges faced by African refugees who make the long, perilous trek to reach the shores of Europe.

The film tells the fictional story of Seydou (Seydou Sarr) and Moussa (Moustapha Fall), two teenage cousins from Senegal who embark on the journey from West Africa towards Italy. The film opens in Dakar, where the boys are desperately saving up enough cash to leave their village.

While the teens want to leave so they can earn money to send back to their families, they must keep their plans a secret from Seydou’s mom, who reacts unfavourably when he expresses his interest in migrating. This is all to show that there is some level of youthful naïveté to their idea of seeking a better life elsewhere.

Their excitement and hope in the early scenes of becoming rich as pop stars in Europe, is juxtaposed by the perils they face on their journey across Africa to actually get there. Garrone’s film is meant to capture the suffering and misery faced by these characters, but also their humanity. Shot in locations across Senegal, Morocco and Italy, the cinematography by Paolo Carnera captures both sweeping desert landscapes and withered faces, giving equal attention to both.

The point of Io Capitano is to offer a gritty, authentic portrait of the journeys faced by real life migrants, as Seydou and Moussa face human smugglers and corrupt border guards. But Garrone balances out this social realist approach with a few magical realist touches, like in one sequence when the cousins become dehydrated and delirious making their way through the desert. It’s these slight fantastical elements that give the film a more lyrical, Odyssey-like quality, even if the magical realism never quite takes centre stage.

The screenplay, which Garrone co-wrote, otherwise follows a number of predictable narrative beats, and there is some feeling of repetition to the story as it goes along. But Sarr’s natural performance is what anchors the film. Seydou begins to take centre stage as the film goes on, and as much as this is a refugee story, it’s also a story of a teen boy coming of age and maturing as he is forced to take on more and more responsibilities. The newcomer handles it well, as the film builds to a climactic sequence that both builds tension and offers an emotionally satisfying payoff.

Film Rating: ★★★ (out of 4)

Io Capitano is now playing exclusively in theatres in limited release, including at TIFF Lightbox in Toronto. It’s being distributed in Canada by Immina Films.