Luz­zu

A diver­sion from the pic­ture-post­card depic­tions of Mal­ta we’re used to see­ing, Luz­zu sees Mal­tese-Amer­i­can film­mak­er Alex Camil­leri cap­ture a long-estab­lished cul­ture that is new to the screen – one which may nev­er appear again.

The film takes its name from the tra­di­tion­al Mal­tese fish­ing boat; the source of its lead’s liveli­hood. Just like his father and grand­fa­ther before him, Jes­mark (Jes­mark Sci­clu­na) is an arti­sanal fish­er­man. But with the high price of liv­ing in the mod­ern world and a declin­ing fish pop­u­la­tion, he strug­gles to pro­vide for his wife and infant son. A leak in the boat leads to delib­er­a­tion and des­per­a­tion. Should he repair his luz­zu or trade it (and his her­itage) in for an EU pay-out?

The win­ner of the Spe­cial Jury Award for act­ing at Sun­dance in 2021, Luz­zu fea­tures real fish­er­men in each role. The street-cast non-pro­fes­sion­al actors were allowed to impro­vise their lines, which cre­ates con­ver­sa­tions that feel mun­dane yet authen­tic and emo­tive. As times are hard, they dis­cuss vio­lat­ing the restric­tive poli­cies that pre­vent them from catch­ing cer­tain fish off-sea­son. As one man con­fides, ​“It’s like we are crim­i­nals now”.

Jesmark’s woes are nev­er shown in iso­la­tion. His friend, played by his real-life cousin, abides by the rules and helps the young fish­er­man as he is tempt­ed to take home a sin­gle pro­hib­it­ed fish that could pay for his son’s med­ical bills. The cam­era clos­es in on them at ease throw­ing lines, skin­ning fish and unwind­ing and cut­ting nets. He warns Jes­mark, ​“With­out a boat, you lose your way.”

Mean­while, ten­sion aris­es with Jesmark’s wife as she pres­sures him to find anoth­er job; she sug­gests trawl­ing, some­thing he is moral­ly opposed to. The harsh real­i­ty is that a sus­tain­able lifestyle isn’t pos­si­ble under cap­i­tal­ism. How­ev­er, his Jesmark’s begins to wilt as he finds him­self part of a black-mar­ket oper­a­tion that is con­se­quen­tial to the oth­er local fishermen.

The water itself is sec­ond to the vast amount of ves­sels float­ing on it. It’s nev­er at peace. As Camil­leri intends, the sea is the men’s fac­to­ry or office and real­i­ty. Cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er Léo Lefèvre keeps things light; the sun is nei­ther gold­en nor presents a false sense of opti­mism, but the heat on screen is palpable.

Clear­ly tak­ing inspi­ra­tion from Ital­ian neo­re­al­ism, Camil­leri nev­er embell­ish­es or triv­i­alis­es the land­scape of fish­ing in Mal­ta but rather presents it as it real­ly is. Luz­zu is a fore­bod­ing warn­ing with no cli­max. A qui­et call to action in the vein of Andrea Arnold’s Cow.

Luz­zu screens at Cur­zon Blooms­bury on 27 May. For more info vis­it cur​zon​.com