Capharnaüm

An angry mature child boldly fights against Lebanese injustice, his sharp shrewd awareness driving his impoverished family mad.

Their poverty is severe and opportunity is non-existent.

Without public education, healthcare, a social safety net, or any knowledge of birth control, they rely solely on religious teachings for strength, while others take advantage of their suffering.

Yet public institutions, collective means through which to sustain a community, don't necessarily exist in opposition to religious practices.

If I'm not mistaken, they're in fact the product of such practices, religious practices secularly upheld.

People in Europe and elsewhere came together some time ago and forged resilient groups that recognized they were stronger united as one, had more bargaining power, more clout, that recognized that every child could have access to education and healthcare if democratically elected political representatives sought to dynamically change socioeconomic conditions which promoted a neverending cycle of poverty, and they then elected political reps who did indeed make such changes.

The changes were by no means perfect, are not perfect, although they seek perfection, but they did lift millions of people out of poverty and at least taught them to read and write while promoting healthy productive and contraceptive lifestyles.

This isn't a Western thing, a European thing, it's a humanistic sociopolitical development that was rationally created by a sociocultural adherence to a respected scientific method.

Take an illness like measles.

Measles used to detrimentally effect millions of children in Europe and elsewhere but scientists studied the disease and found a cure and now it only rarely emerges when people don't vaccinate their children.

The anti-vac movement is one of the most shortsighted cultural developments on record, and would see millions of children suffering from diseases brilliant women and men more or less eradicated if it was ever taken seriously.

I ask you, would God not promote science? Would God not promote a world where we teach ourselves to humanistically take care of people rather than relying on his or her benevolence?

I imagine millions of people prayed that their children wouldn't get measles, but still millions and millions of children got measles, and then scientists found a cure, a cure for measles, thereby answering the prayers of millions of parents and enabling a world where parents didn't have to pray their children wouldn't get it.

Capharnaüm isn't about measles.

It's about poverty and lack of opportunity.

The situation's bleak and the non-existent opportunities heartbreakingly chronicle millions of prayers left unanswered.

Non-violent collective action in many countries led to situations where opportunity was at least possible and education was indeed probable.

It wasn't easy.

But the results are somewhat miraculous.

It's not about one child getting an identity card because he tenaciously fights powers that be.

It's about that child forming groups that promote public education and healthcare and the creation of a social safety net which effectively fights poverty.

That scientifically and secularly applies age old religious principles.

With actual concrete results.

That dynamically challenge and change things.

Like the horrendous happenings in this film.

It's not for the lighthearted.

But tells a tale you'll find nowhere else.

Powerful filmmaking.

Gifted storytelling.

A light.

A crucible.

Et maintenant on va où? (Where Do We Go Now?)

A remote village in Lebanon remains technologically isolated from its surrounding politico-cultural environment which erupts in a religious war. Seeking to ensure that no more of their children are needlessly slaughtered, its Christian and Muslim female inhabitants unite to distract their masculine counterparts. However, regardless of the fact that they know nothing of the war, tensions between these men have been increasing due to sacrilegious activities that have inspired retribution.

Trying to covertly manage the vindictive violence proves challenging.

A challenge to which these heroic women stalwartly, respond.

Exercising a seductive mix of the expedient, the temperamental, and the divine, Nadine Labaki's Et maintenant on va où? (Where Do We Go Now?) fictionally verifies how destructive overtures can be pacified within pressurized time constraints.

Certain aspects of the solution they facilitate may have practical applications beyond said constraints, although reflecting upon whether or not their means justifies their ends pasteurizes acute ethical dilemmas.

Nevertheless, a powerful film with a progressive message, Et maintenant on va où suggests that a rural dynamic can play an influential role in the byzantine global mosaic, as a matter of perseverance as opposed to pride, or acceptance as the foundations of transcendence.