Happy as Lazzaro

Wide eyed sheeple lurk amidst the undergrowth in Happy as Lazzaro

Alice Rohrwacher's Happy as Lazzaro is a droll, Bunuelian comedy of class, time and memory. Lazzaro belongs  to a family of exploited sharecroppers toiling on a tobacco farm in rural Italy during the 1980s. Lazzaro is akin to Bresson's Balthazar, an all innocent, all suffering beast of burden who uncomplainingly toils. He falls into a kind of friendship with the landowner's son, Tancred. There is a note of chivalry in their relationship, but Tancred, no Prince of Galilee or leader of the First Crusade he, is more interested in extorting money from his mother by staging his own kidnapping than in bonding with Lazzaro.

Like Rip van Winkle, Lazzaro falls out of sight for thirty years or so. When he returns, he seek out his family fervently. Adriano Tardiolo, who plays Lazzaro, is reminiscent of Ellijah Wood in his wide eyed intensity. As the film moves from rural poverty to urban dislocation, Lazzaro stands as a repository of lost knowledge. A bravura pan shot spans three decades conveying the fleeting glory of Lazzaro's quest.

Rohrwacher has a distinctive eye, she even gives communication towers a magical glow. Happy as Lazzaro is a complex fable that focuses on the ambiguity of man's nature. Rohrwacher's finale, with Lazzaro as a Christ-like figure confronting moneylenders, falls flat, but she has deftly created a world where men exist as wolves and sheep, predators and prey.