Winner of Best Screenplay at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, Italian writer-director Alice Rohrwacher’s Happy as Lazzaro is a beguiling and luminous magic realist fable which echoes the surrealist films of cinematic masters like Pier Paolo Pasolini, Federico Fellini and Derek Jarman.
Beautifully shot on super 16mm, the film follows the sweet natured peasant Lazzaro (played wonderfully by newcomer Adriano Tardiolo) whose people-pleasing personality is often mistaken for simple-mindedness. Lazzaro is persuaded by the village ruler’s bleach blonde-haired son to help him fake his own kidnapping for ransom; however their plans take some unexpected and miraculous turns.
