Just when you thought it was safe (to go back to Comino)…

It may have gone down in history as the ‘worst sequel ever made’ – but then again, how do you even improve on a cinematic masterpiece that was recently hailed (by Quentin Tarantino, no less) as “the greatest movie of all time”?

The short answer, of course, is: you don’t even try. So when it came to producing the mandatory sequel to Steven Spielberg’s seminal 1975 classic, ‘Jaws’… the result was a movie that simply repeated the same basic story-line of the original (‘tiny seaside village terrorised by giant Great White Shark’); the same basic dilemma (‘local business interests, prioritised over all other concerns’); faced by the same actor (Roy Scheider); in the same location (Amity, a fictitious New York coastal town)…

… even the poster was the same, for crying out loud! (The only difference being that the doomed girl is now water-skiing, instead of swimming; and the shark’s head has been re-positioned to resemble a surface-to-air missile, caught in mid-launch…)

Nonetheless, there is at least one aspect in which ‘Jaws 2’ actually DOES improve on the original. The tagline: ‘Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water…’

Leaving aside that the movie itself never quite delivers on that inherent promise… the line itself has since become so iconic, that many people mistake it for a quote from the original ‘Jaws’.

And you can see why, too. It possesses the same sort of universal applicability, that has already turned so many other ‘Jaws’ quotes into instant proverbs (like, for instance: “We need a bigger boat”). You can use it to evoke almost any situations, in which people are somehow lulled into a false sense of security… because they believe (erroneously) that ‘the danger is past’; or ‘the problem has been solved’…

But the same line can also be interpreted as a fundamental principle that underpins, not just the ‘Jaws’ franchise itself… but arguably, the entire ‘Monster Movie’ genre in its totality (if not every horror movie ever made). That is to say: it is precisely at that moment when you feel ‘safe’, that disaster is most likely to strike…

That poor girl who got herself dismembered in the very first scene, for instance? Clearly, she must have thought it was perfectly ‘safe’ to go for an early morning swim, after an all-night beach party. (And let’s face it: who the heck can blame her? It was 1975, after all…)

Likewise, it is perfectly understandable that Town Mayor Larry Vaughn (played by Murray Robinson) would decide that it was ‘safe’ to re-open Amity’s beaches for swimming… in the mistaken belief that the killer shark had already been caught by a local fisherman.

Ah, but then you hear that dreaded, ominous sound - the first, tortured strains of John Williams’ soundtrack, rising from the deep – and that’s when you belatedly realise that… no, actually. The ‘problem’ has not been solved; the ‘danger’ is very far from over (and oh look: here it comes right now, to bite you once again in the butt…)

Which of course, takes us all to another small seaside resort – much closer to home – that is currently being ‘terrorised’ by another kind of recurring ‘monster’. (Because that’s another thing that makes ‘Jaws’ such a great movie, by the way: it’s not just the tag-line, but the entire plot that can lend itself to almost any interpretation you care to name…)

It is tempting, for instance, to portray Comino’s more mercenary economic exploiters – the ‘umbrella/deckchair brigade’, for want of a better term - as the ‘monster’ that is inexorably ‘devouring’ public space at the Blue Lagoon…

… but considering that our entire appraisal of the original ‘Jaws’ villain has changed so dramatically, since 1975 – we now regard the Great White Shark more as a critically endangered (and severely misrepresented) apex predator, than as a ‘terrifying maneater’ - I have decided to approach the challenge from the clean opposite angle.

Let us, for argument’s sake, cast Moviment Graffitti in the role of the ‘shark’; the Comino umbrella/deckchair brigade as the ‘victims’; and the local authorities – including Prime Minister Robert Abela, and Tourism Minister Clayton Bartolo – as… well, the equivalent of the Amity Town Hall.

Oh, and let’s also choose to start our homegrown movie on the morning of June 10 (when the ‘shark’ made its first unexpected ‘attack’…)

Viewed from this angle: pretty much everything else about the entire Comino saga simply ‘falls into place’, as if scripted for the same movie. Consider, for instance, how closely the reaction of the Maltese government seems to mirror that of Amity’s Mayor Vaughn.

Faced with demands, by civil society, to ‘limit the number of tourists to Blue Lagoon’ (the local equivalent of ‘closing the beaches, on the eve of 4 July’), both Abela and Bartolo simply did what shark-expert Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) accuses of Vaughn of doing, in the film: ‘Ignoring the problem, until it swims up to you and bites you in the ass!’

And sure enough, that’s precisely what happened. Moviment Graffitti’s ‘raid’ on Comino, on June 10, was not just completely ‘unexpected’, as far as the authorities were concerned (so much so, that Clayton Bartolo even claimed that inspectors were on their way to the Blue Lagoon, even as it happened)… but – just like in the movie – it also exposed the Maltese government’s tendency to always ‘prioritise business interests, over and all other concerns.’

Besides: just as the second shark-attack in ‘Jaws’ (the kid on the lilo, remember?) forces the Amity mayor to finally admit that… yes, the problem does exist, after all; and yes, we need to “close the beaches… inform the coast-guard… hire someone to kill the shark”, etc., etc…

Well, both Robert Abela and Clayton Bartolo reacted exactly the same way to Moviment Graffitti’s initial raid. Except that… not only did they (finally) acknowledge that over-exploitation of Comino’s Blue Lagoon was, indeed, a ‘reality’ that needed to be ‘dealt with’; but they both even claimed to have already ‘solved’ the problem… right there and then, on the spot!

In the Prime Minister’s own words: “A compromise decision was taken immediately in the best interest of both the public and the operators. We need to achieve a balance between the rights of the people to enjoy public spaces and that of the operators to work. We can’t however put a stop to commercial activities…”

Likewise, Bartolo announced that an agreement had already been reached, to guarantee “a substantial decrease in the number of sunbeds and umbrellas in the area”; and that the enforcement agencies would start carrying out inspections, ‘on a regular basis’, from that day on...

Honestly, though: how very different is that, from Mayor Vaughn announcing that ‘it was safe to go back into the water’… because the shark was (presumably) dead? And how ‘dead’ did that shark turn out to be, anyway? [Spoiler alert! The answer can only be ‘not very’… seeing as how it proceeds to devour at least four other characters – and at least one dog – by the final credits).

By the same token: how much truth is there, really, to the government’s claim to have already ‘solved’ the problem on Comino? Or to have ‘achieved the right balance, between the rights of commercial entities and those of the public?”

Well: if you’ve watched the movie ‘Jaws’, you probably already know the answer to that one. Less than two months after its first Comino ‘attack’, Moviment Graffiti returned once more to ‘terrorise’ the Blue Lagoon coastline: and this time, they returned with video evidence that…

… well, it seems that not much has changed at the Blue Lagoon at all, since June 10. The foreshore (with the exception of the last remaining sandy part) is still the unquestioned preserve of the same handful of tourism operators; who still evidently treat the entire bay as an extension of their own private commercial interests...

… which also means that – just like in the 1975 Spielberg masterpiece – a ‘sequel’ is now inevitable. With the problem still manifestly unresolved, the ‘shark’ has no option but to continue ‘attacking’: starting with a second Moviment Graffitti raid, scheduled for this coming Saturday; and after that… who knows? ‘Jaws 3’? ‘Jaws 4’? ‘Jaws 5’?

It all depends, I suppose, on just how long it will take, for people like Robert Abela and Clayton Bartolo to finally learn the lesson from the original movie. ‘Just when you thought it was safe to go in the water’: THAT is when you inevitably hear that ‘dreaded, ominous sound, rising from the deep’…