Happy as Lazzaro

Writer/director Alice Rohrwacher has created a beguiling marvel that starts out like a bucolic fable produced by Ermanno Olmi or the Taviani brothers, before daringly morphing into a tale of urban realism that Pier Paolo Pasolini might have devised in reworking Pinocchio. The unwitting antihero at the centre of this transformation is Lazzaro (Adriano Tardiolo), who recalls the sort of put-upon naif played by Giulietta Masina in husband Federico Fellini's neorealist phase. Not only is Lazzaro callously exploited by his neighbours in the remote estate of Inviolata, but he's also cynically duped by the rebellious son of a tobacco-growing marchesa (Nicoletta Braschi), who has kept the villagers in unknowing servitude for years. Some may baulk at the audacious shifts in tone and place, but Rohrwacher's conviction helps to offset the seeming anachronisms that reflect with acerbic acuity on the Italian character and the nation's socio-economic travails. Rohrwacher's third feature is challenging, compelling and exceptionally played, while cinematographer Hélène Louvart's evocative use of a Super-16 format reinforces the mood of faux nostalgia.