Happy as Lazzaro

The place: rural Italy. The time: unclear. Lazzaro is a young peasant whose family members are crop sharers on Marchesa Alfonsina de Luna’s sprawling tobacco plantation. When her son Tancredi first visits the fields, eye brows are raised: a pale boy in urban clothes holding what seems like a futuristic omen – a Walkman. Captivated by Lazzaro’s kindness and sincerity, Tancredi’s rather icy visage begins to melt and when he decides to escape the plantation, Lazzaro lends a hand. Italian filmmaker Alice Rohrwacher (The Wonders) brings us a fascinating, cinematographic feat which one critic described as a combination of Pasolini’s characters and landscapes with Gabriel Garcia Márquez’s magical realism.