Critic Reviews

Sun-drenched Luzzu is an unaffected triumph with a simmering power, the type of deceivingly familiar film that helps us sail into a place and a lifestyle most of us ignore but that are made vividly compelling in the hand of a new storyteller with classically honed sensibilities.

It's a heartbreaking, but clear-eyed look at the last gasp of a dying industry, and a man whose whole identity, whole livelihood gets shattered by a force beyond his comprehension.

Luzzu is a moving portrait of a world in flux, and one man attempting to survive the changes thrust upon him by a baffling outside world.

What is a fishing community if restrictions deny their catch? The world continues to change no matter what anyone does. Camilleri understands that dilemma and puts it on film with humble clarity.

Malta’s views are arresting, but the images Camilleri chooses would never be found in a travel brochure. In his subtle, vérité approach, he captures something special — not one man’s crisis, but a community’s culture.

Luzzu is a slender, rather bleak but tough, rough-cut little jewel that deserves your time and attention.

Camilleri captures the beauty of Malta in Luzzu. He shows us the island, the sea, the colorful traditional boats with faces painted on the front, and the glamour of sunset over the ocean. He also shows us life there can be destructively difficult for people trying to make it on the low end, as they struggle to maintain their traditions and pride while the world changes around them.

The impressive feature debut from Maltese-American writer and director Alex Camilleri manages to be both self-contained, in its depiction of an embattled community, but also unexpectedly far-reaching in its themes. The film is an exploration of masculinity in crisis, of the attrition of traditions by the forces of progress and of the agonies and uncertainties of new parenthood.

On the face of it, this film is a commentary on the darker side of globalisation and modern commerce, but for Camilleri who was raised in Minnesota in a Maltese family, it also feels like a pilgrimage back to one’s roots, highlighting the specificities of the Maltese language and culture which are still sorely underrepresented in world cinema.

The magnetic Scicluna is a Maltese fisherman in real life, and part of a cast predominantly made up of non-professional actors. His performance is impressively complex.