The days of French avant-garde films and Italian neo-realism have gone. This is the era of small countries. They tell humane stories through their indigenous culture and bring forth their own coarse struggle so realistically that everyone connects to those narrations effortlessly and it becomes global.
The tiny Mediterranean coastal country of Malta really moved me with this amazing flick. When the protagonist Jesmark doubts if all the old parts of a wooden boat are replaced with new blocks day by day, does that remain the same boat it used to be? The film ends and you keep on thinking.
Luzzu is a petty prismatically coloured wooden boat that Maltese fishermen use for fishing through their ancestral lineage.
Jesmark, an off-screen fisherman, sheds blood and sweat to keep the wolf away from the door. Despite that, he keeps his values abreast and never catches prohibited fish or takes the jobs of big sheep because those demons destroy sea beds.
But his life turns upside down when his newborn baby suffers from stunted growth and to treat the disease he needs lots of money and a better living. To feed his family he becomes easy prey of a corrupted clandestine market system.
Besides that, he dreams of fishing with his Luzzu, repaired, coated with bright joyous colours one day. He starts repairing his Luzzu and gets involved in the fishy fishery business. When he completes the renovation of his Luzzu, he decides to sell it off.
Jesmark has done a commendable job. His dejected gloomy eyes silently demonstrate his painful inner-conflicts. Cinematographer Lèo Lèfevre shows the dazzling beauty of sea surrounded land which enthrals you with a tincture of sorrow.
But, in the end, when Jesmark throws that abovesaid question towards us, you start to rethink, is there anything to lament for a refurbished thing only because of our mental and memorial attachments?
This film is this year’s official entry for the 94th Academy Awards from Malta and surely one of the best films I watched at the International Film Festival of India, 2021.