Happy as Lazzaro, 2018.
Directed by Alice Rohrwacher.
Starring Adriano Tardiolo, Alba Rohrwacher, Tommaso Ragno, Luca Chikovani, Natalino Balasso and Nicoletta Braschi.
SYNOPSIS:
An unlikely friendship that blossoms on an isolated farm fires the starting pistol on a bizarre, surreal journey.
It’s not often that a movie completely reconfigures itself at the halfway point, but that’s the trick played by Alice Rohrwacher’s truly bizarre Happy as Lazzaro – winner of the screenplay prize at last year’s Cannes Film Festival. What begins as a tale of a time long past, in which feudal society was a reality, reshapes itself into something more elusive and surreal. In the process, though, Rohrwacher conjures a series of arresting images, anchored around a plot that burrows itself deep inside every viewer willing to go with it.
We start on an estate called Inviolata, where workers on a tobacco farm are kept constantly in debt to their boss, known as the Queen of Cigarettes (Nicoletta Braschi), and her underling Nicola (Natalino Balasso). In amongst the isolated little society, Lazzaro (Adriano Tardiolo) is something of a whipping boy – so timid and desperate for approval that he’ll take on the jobs no one else wants to do. He finds someone who seems to take an interest in him when the aforementioned tobacco kingpin’s son Tancredi (Luca Chikovani) shows up, but it seems he just wants someone to help him in a fake kidnap plot.
Tardiolo is perfect in the title role, entirely believable as someone completely pure and innocent. He sees the best in everyone and takes all of the effluent life has thrown at him with a taciturn sense of acceptance. When Tancredi turns up and wows Lazzaro with his pretty boy posho shtick, Tardiolo sells the infatuation perfectly, looking to his new friend for approval every time he opens his mouth to say something.
It’s a slow build that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere in a hurry, until a shocking event knocks the entire story off balance, making the most of the lilting, woozy tone of the opening hour. What follows is a story that deals in surreal images and a skewed reality, still anchored by Tardiolo’s performance, which never falters as he takes yet another strange life event in his stride. There might well be something supernatural going on, but Rohrwacher’s film never over-eggs the pudding, maintaining the same unusual sense of a dream unfolding.
Not everything here works, with the first half requiring rather more patience to sit through than the average audience member has to spare – particularly on Netflix, which is the movie’s American home. Those who are able to stomach those early languors, though, are rewarded by a disarming second half that has a quiet, emotional power even as it ladles on social commentary and discussion of class.
I’m not entirely sure why Happy as Lazzaro works. Its narrative is loose and ill-disciplined, with strange interludes – a pair of burglars who we latter see nicking crisps from a petrol station – that feel as if they sit beside the central narrative thrust rather than being a part of it. However, there’s no denying the unconventional power Rohrwacher wields, culminating in a final scene that is opaque, yet arresting in a way that has stuck with me in the months since I saw the film. It’s one for the patient viewer, this, but the rewards are rich.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Tom Beasley is a freelance film journalist and wrestling fan. Follow him on Twitter via @TomJBeasley for movie opinions, wrestling stuff and puns.
