THE STORY – To sever ties with her homeland once and for all, Mar must traverse Malta to claim her inheritance. Guided by a charismatic, octogenarian troubadour, she finds herself softening to the country’s charms.
THE CAST – Michela Farrugia, Nenu Borg, Michael Azzopardi & Frida Cauchi
THE TEAM – Alex Camilleri (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 108 minutes
It’s never too late for a coming-of-age story, particularly when dealing with an intense loss, as it gives you the urge to reflect and grow in ways you didn’t even know you had to. Even as you enter your thirties and have tasted the first stage of adulthood, there’s still so much you can learn, not just about your world but about yourself. This is the core feeling that lingers throughout Alex Camilleri’s “Zejtune,” a film which serves as a love letter to where you’re from, a poem for how you were raised, and a farewell card for when you may be leaving that birth land behind.
The film follows a woman in Malta named Mar (Michela Farrugia), who attempts to sell the farm land she inherited after her mother’s death. She meets an older man named Nenu (Nenu Borg), a folk singer whose music gives her an opportunity to reassess her feelings and confront her grief. The film pulls a lot from Malta’s history and tradition, all of which enraptures Mar more into perhaps not leaving behind this home. It’s at first easier for her to leave this place of pain, but the more time she spends with Nenu, she wonders how she should really be healing. How Camilleri portrays this shift in Mar is entirely believable and well-realized.
This is Camilleri’s second feature, and for so early in his career, he already displays such a clear voice and personality. This is mainly communicated through the incredibly lovely music that plays throughout, a music that is so authentic it feels like home, even as an audience member from across the globe. The music man, played by Borg himself in a debut role, is the real star and heart of the film. Obviously, with the self-inserted name, there’s a lot of this character that feels authentic to Borg as a performer, but it really adds so much life to the film. The film has almost a Chloe Zhao-like quality in how it captures the landscapes and the natural feeling of the people who inhabit them. Nenu feels like the strongest example of this, and that character is sincerely the strongest element of the film, and does for it just as much as he does for the lead character.
If anything, his presence and the folk scene that Mar ends up involved in kind of takes away some of the luster and potential impact of the grief at the film’s core. On a base level, it is well-handled and communicated, but for how much of the emotion comes from the music, one yearns for a little more from the protagonist. Obviously, the character’s closed-off nature is intentional and natural for someone in her circumstances, but perhaps her arc and the script overall are a tad too clean for the film’s style. For how authentic a lot of the film feels, how her stories evolve and resolve could’ve been a bit more nuanced, but that doesn’t mean the character journey isn’t emotionally effective.
This isn’t to say Farrugia isn’t strong in the lead role; she delivers an often striking performance, and many of her feelings remain internal for most of the film. The issue lies more in the character’s writing, making her feel fully realized by the end. If you’ve experienced a grief similar to hers, or have similar feelings about leaving a hometown, perhaps, but without projecting any parallel experiences onto the lead character, some of the vacancies could’ve been further explored to really make this film a home run. However, for people who do connect with these ideas, there’s a lot in Farrugia’s face and smaller mannerisms that feel very true, and along with the film’s music will probably stick around the longest after the film ends.
The film is very personal for filmmaker Alex Camilleri, who moved from the United States to Malta during the pandemic and has stayed there ever since. That personal quality is palpable throughout the film, and, again, it’s almost a Rorschach test: the more you relate to this story, the more you will connect with the film. You could say that about many films, however. Similarly sensitive films like “Aftersun” or “Past Lives” hit harder when you’ve been through those trials yourself. While this film doesn’t explore its ideas to the level of intimacy as those films do, it still has a very clear and individual authorship that makes it a very worthwhile watch, and makes Camilleri a filmmaker to keep an eye on.
