Adriano Tardiolo

Agnese Graziani

Luca 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

Hélène Louvart

Alice Rohrwacher

Carlo Cresto-Dina

Nelly Quettier

Paolo Del Brocco

Barbara Tomada

Giorgio Gasparini

Francesca Andreoli

Martin Scorsese

Gregory Gajos

Loredana Buscemi

Viola Fügen

Pierre-François Piet

Alessio Lazzareschi

Davide Spina

Sara Cavani

Alessandro Filippucci

Daniela Tartari

Miguel Barbosa

Rodolfo Migliari

Massimo Appolloni

Claudia Panzica

Jerome Lauer

Santina Cardile

Eleonora Medolla

Shara Spinella

Olivier Père

Michael Weber

Brian Roncoroni

Daniele Morini

Daniela Baldasarre

Maxence Ciekawy

Christophe Giovannoni

Xavier Lavorel

Daphne Mereu

Gabriele Scilla

Giulio Aspettati

Stefania Colombo

Tiziana Soudani

Rachele Meliadò

Barbara Valente

Lina Cardillo

Michel Merkt

Marcos Molina

Giovanni Ermes Vincenti

Lorenzo Capra

Filippo Toma

Ulrike Müller

Massimo Alteri

Sara Lombardi

Daniele Nguyen

Pasquale Di Sano

Chiara Polizzi

Simon Manzollino

Alessandro Cacciamani

Nicola Scorza

Dirk Meier

Emita Frigato

Julien D'Esposito

Mattia Bisonni

Marco Pancrazi

Daniele Spinozzi

Gianfranco Marongiu

Emiliano Novelli

Florian Trautwein

Giorgia Villa

François Musy

Pasquale Catalano

Maria Gnecchi

Elena Pascaniuc

Cécile Tollu-Polonowski

Shay Beinwoll

Ahmed Zaoui

Ronald Haldimann

Fabio Traversari

Alessandro Novelli

Helivr

Camilo Sottolichio

Meinolf Zurhorst

Dorissa Berninger

Andreas Schellenberg

Diego S. Staub

Lucas Berisso

Simona Pampallona

Gloria Guglielmo

Piero Crucitti

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

Trailer

Happy as Lazzaro( 2018)

Overview

Top Billed Cast

Social

A review by SWITCH.

Written by SWITCH. on Thu Jun 06 2019

Media

Recommendations

Facts

Status

Original Language

Budget

Revenue

Keywords