Adriano Tardiolo

Agnese Graziani

Luke Chikovani

Alba Rohrwacher

Sergi López

Tommaso Ragno

Natalino Balasso

Nicoletta Braschi

Carlo Massimino

Daria Pascal Attolini

Maddalena Baiocco

Giulia Caccavello

Annunziata Capretto

Alessandro Genovesi

Davide Denci

Edoardo Montalto

Leonardo Nigro

Gala Othero Winter

Iris Pulvano

Ettore Scarpa

Pasqualina Scuncia

Carlo Tarmati

Pascal Tréguy

Daria Deflorian

Elisabetta Rocchetti

Luciano Vergaro

Annibale De Luca

Giuseppe Corsini

Marcello Duranti

Marco Donno

Nicola Sorci

Sofia Stangherlin

Silvia Lucarini

Cinzia de Luca

Lucia Centoscudi

Anita Crucitti

David Bennent

Antonio Salines

Nelly Quettier

Carlo Cresto-Dina

Alice Rohrwacher

Hélène Louvart

Paolo Del Brocco

Giorgio Gasparini

Andreas Schellenberg

Fabio Traversari

Pierre-François Piet

Cécile Tollu-Polonowski

Ronald Haldimann

Daniele Nguyen

Alessandro Novelli

Davide Spina

Shay Beinwoll

Ahmed Zaoui

Daniele Spinozzi

Simona Pampallona

Giulio Aspettati

Alessandro Filippucci

Santina Cardile

Michel Merkt

Xavier Lavorel

Marcos Molina

Maria Gnecchi

Jerome Lauer

Elena Pascaniuc

Shara Spinella

Daniela Baldasarre

Florian Trautwein

Piero Crucitti

Sara Cavani

Loredana Buscemi

Alessio Lazzareschi

François Musy

Pasquale Catalano

Helivr

Gregory Gajos

Chiara Polizzi

Gianfranco Marongiu

Barbara Valente

Francesca Andreoli

Viola Fügen

Ulrike Müller

Sara Lombardi

Julien D'Esposito

Diego S. Staub

Emiliano Novelli

Michael Weber

Brian Roncoroni

Daniele Morini

Christophe Giovannoni

Rodolfo Migliari

Giovanni Ermes Vincenti

Gabriele Scilla

Lorenzo Capra

Filippo Toma

Barbara Tomada

Martin Scorsese

Tiziana Soudani

Alessandro Cacciamani

Maxence Ciekawy

Emita Frigato

Daniela Tartari

Nicola Scorza

Pasquale Di Sano

Dirk Meier

Olivier Père

Rachele Meliadò

Stefania Colombo

Lina Cardillo

Massimo Alteri

Miguel Barbosa

Massimo Appolloni

Eleonora Medolla

Giorgia Villa

Gloria Guglielmo

Claudia Panzica

Daphne Mereu

Mattia Bisonni

Marco Pancrazi

Lucas Berisso

Camilo Sottolichio

Meinolf Zurhorst

Dorissa Berninger

Simon Manzollino

Kevi Aragunde

Drama

Fantasy

Lazzaro felice

Ad Vitam Production

Tempesta

Amka Films

Pola Pandora Filmproduktions

RAI Cinema

ARTE France Cinéma

ZDF/Arte

France

Germany

Italy

Switzerland

Italiano

Happy as Lazzaro

wolf

rural area

magic realism

sharecropper

SWITCH.

‘Happy as Lazzaro’ comes and goes like an airy fable but doesn’t make as much of an impact as it wants to. Through a lack of convincing and earned pivot, its first half in realism drags down the escapism it yearns for in its second half. Its ambition is to be commended and is definitely a film that deserves to be seen, but as a whole is just verging on greatness.
- Ashley Teresa

Read Ashley's full article...
https://www.maketheswitch.com.au/article/review-happy-as-lazzaro-more-than-meets-the-eye

A tale (or fable?) of social commentary by directress and writer Alice Rohrwacher (that I first knew in the short "Le Pupille") in rural Italy with touches of anti capitalism and class division, where sharecroppers live, without knowing their semi-slavery state because of lack of knowledge. Lazzaro the protagonist, is an innocent character that is happy to make others happy, in the pureness of his heart. He doesn't know who is his father of mother just who is maybe his grandmother.

There are very few signs of when this passes you can guess the 60 or 70's till later you see a cellphone of the 90's. So this is the condition that those people lives.

They live under Marchesa Alfonsina De Luna state till one day Lazzaro meets the rebellious son of her, Tancredi, that wants to live away from the rot of his bankrupt family, so he devise a plan.

A plan that unwillingly ends ends with and event that throws Lazzaro in the future 20 to 30 years ahead. By chance or destiny he meet robbers in the now decadent rural mansion (not knowing that they are people of his past "family") and in the city where he is recognized by an old female friend (the role is played by the older sister of Rohrwacher, Alba) - the only one that sees the miracle of him not ageing anything at all (and not all broken and bloody by the event that happened so many years ago, not seen by anyone).

In this urban future he ends up living within the same ignorant and individualist clan (with some exceptions) and ends up meeting by chance the Baroness son again, decadent as ever in his dreams of richness that broke his spirit. 

Not telling the end after all this spoilers, but it is sad to see Lazzaro so pure treated as nothing, unhappy by his friend status, and trying to correct things in a wrong way in his innocency (no, it doesn't have an happy ending). 

A movie that may not be for everyone but that shines to see such saintness and pureness of heart among our society.

Good cinematography and choice of colors, with Kodak Super 16mm film by cinematographer DP Hélène Louvart AFC  and good acting by the protagonist, the newcomer Adriano Tardiolo.

I would score this one a 8.0 out of 10.0 / A-.

Official UK Trailer

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Happy as Lazzaro( 2018)

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A review by SWITCH.

Written by SWITCH. on Thu Jun 06 2019

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