Happy as Lazzaro (Alice Rohrwacher)

[Stay Puft]

HAPPY AS LAZZARO / LAZZARO FELICE
Dir. Alice Rohrwacher



IMDb page

[Stay Puft]

Ah, I loved this. The 16mm presentation has this almost tactile quality, like I felt I could reach out towards the screen and grab the film and feel it running through my fingers. It has echoes of neo-realism in the first part, with its focus on a rural community, working class and use of nonprofessional actors. But it's a work of magic realism, with Rohrwacher embracing artifice to ends both wry and amusing (swapping out an actor for a crash test dummy at one point) and charming and beguiling (playing with diegetic sound in a key sequence in a surprising way).

I won't say too much about the plot to avoid spoilers, but the narrative is bifurcated in a completely unexpected way (at least to me; I knew nothing about it going in and even when I thought I had a handle on what was happening at first, my expectations were completely upended). The film's casting director is the MVP of 2018. I screamed, I cried, I laughed out loud; all in all, I found the experience gorgeous and astonishing. Lazzaro is maybe my favorite character from the movies last year. What joy. What heartache.

And, hey, it's on Netflix. (Though maybe this is why nobody has seen it?)

[Grouchy]

This is one incredible film. My views mostly echo Stay Puft's. It's a work of magical realism whose secrets slowly creep up on the jaded viewer. And the casting director's work here is brilliant and adds a lot to an important section of the story. So does the amazing grainy film texture.

(swapping out an actor for a crash test dummy at one point)

When did this happen?

[Stay Puft]

When did this happen?

I wasn't sure how else to type it while remaining vague, so not literally a crash test dummy I guess but [

Show Spoiler

the scene of Lazzaro getting distracted by the helicopter and falling over the cliff; the actor is clearly replaced with a dummy that they dropped over a cliff, not that it wouldn't be obvious either way, but I thought it was funny and even deliberate on Rohrwacher's part, since it's the precise moment that Lazzaro's "journey" begins in the second half, switching from neo-realism to time-travelling fantasy).

]