“Luzzu”, the first appearance of Alex Camilleri’s feature film, is named after a specific traditional fishing boat used in the Maltese islands. In the film, Camilleri focuses on one particular luzzu. Jesmark’s, a young fisherman who has inherited his boat from generations of men in his family. Jesmark eats a tentative living for himself with his boat, but the world is changing and making a living through fishing has become increasingly difficult. It is especially difficult for the newly married man, who has a small child. Leak comes in his boat to undertake cutting-edge metaphorical resonance and over the course of the 90-minute runtime Camilleri turns “Luzzu” into a moving, bleak picture of a man confronting the reality of adapting to a world that seems to have no place to him.
“Luzzu” is the kind of film that makes film festivals worthwhile. This kind of gentle, self-aware filmmaking with small but perceptive interests may fall by the wayside in the commercial demands of the film industry. But Sundance’s interest in small dramas like this reminds us of the ways in which filmmakers outside the big metropolises offer valuable and thoughtful engagement with powerful themes. Camilleri’s account of the film’s production process in a recent Q&A session for the film reflects his interest in authenticity.
The film’s main fisherman, Jesmark and his colleague David, are two non-actors with whom Camilleri worked, rewriting parts of the script to reflect their own natural cadence. That naturalism is an essential part of what is at work in “Luzzu”. The film’s presentation of a Maltese town, at the peak of a battle between tradition and modernity, retains the concerns of small towns with little hint of impact. Instead, Camilleri hears close to a style that recalls the early days of Italian neorealism, a style that was central to his own idea of cinema.
The specificity of this Maltese story is given with such care but also reflects complexities that have come to define the current global situation. As Jesmark struggles to navigate life as a family man and fisherman, the film brings us to a point of crisis that forces difficult questions. This is largely a film about this particular man trying to erase this particular life. But more points are made here about the world we live in and about climate change and the relationship to capitalism. That last pair that makes the work at Luzzu feel so memorable. Luzzu has not been the only film in Sundance to engage with our responsibility towards nature and the ways in which that relationship can go wrong.
The naturalistic, improvised way in which “Luzzu” was created makes sense. Each camera tone reflects a film full of empathy. These are familiar beats and a familiar structure in service of something that is specifically about recognizing the humanity of people who often do not emerge in the cinema – studio or independent. And Camilleri has made a discovery for the ages in Jesmark Scicluna in the main part. He won the World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Acting at Sundance, and it’s easy to see why. The melancholy behind his eyes seems smothered in every moment, and Camilleri understands how this character must develop into a heroic aggressor than a sad persecution sack. He is nothing more, but critical no less, than a man who has found himself wrestling with the realization that the traditions he holds fast to may not love him back with the same urge.
Cinematographer Léo Lefèvre creates images of naturalistic beauty from the landscape. This is not the untouched picaresque of an ideal seaside. Instead, a gentle caress of the land that recognizes its ambiguous beauty. Lovely but unrelenting. The passages overlooking the water (and the clarity of the town) establish the ways in which Jesmark exists within a given structure and livelihood. It’s easier said than done to break away from that.
There have been a few endings that acknowledge the messy ambiguity of life at Sundance this year, and “Luzzu” gives us one of the best. Camilleri’s recognition of how growth and development can be captured in cycles of familiarity and tradition packs a gut into the gut. The charming narrowness of focus undermines awareness of the larger world, without appreciation, which marks the best of World Cinema. This is an intense and thoughtful filmmaking that intersects with cinema’s current interests – masculinity, our relentless struggle with isolation, the changing climate and our desperate attempt to leave a mark in the world when our importance is so limited . “Luzzu” is a small miracle with specific intentions, but it doesn’t move any less. It’s one of the festival’s victories this year.
Luzzu premiered in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition category at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival.