Italian Cinema: Happy as Lazzaro

With Happy as Lazzaro, Rohrwacher has crafted a magic-realist fable that doubles as an origin myth for a modern Italy subsumed by corruption and decline. The director herself is content to leave it to audiences to interpret things as they will: she herself has described Happy as Lazzaro as being 'a political fable, an unexpected fairy tale, a song about the last fifty years of our history'… reflecting both the film's ambition and its stunning uniqueness.