First screening at the 2018 Jerusalem Film Festival.
Happy Lazzaro is a rural ukiyo-e, a film that interweaves magical realism with modern allegory.
The story takes place in a small isolated town in Italy in the second half of the last century. Lazaro works with a large family of farmers for the Marchioness known as the "Queen of Tobacco".
The young master of the Marchioness met Lazaro by chance. The two people who lived in different worlds unexpectedly became friends. The innocent Lazaro took the young master to visit his secret base and brought him food and drinks, young master. then swore to him with a slingshot. This friendship is very precious to him.
The rebellious young master was tired of the shackled aristocratic life all day long, so he ran away from home and hid in the mountains, and directed and acted a kidnapping farce, but finally attracted the police and completely broke the peaceful life of the farmers...
With the passage of time, Lazaro travels through time and space to find his dear friend who was lost decades ago, and finds that he is facing a completely unfamiliar modern world.
As far as the eye can see , "Lazzaro Happy" may be one of the best European art films of recent years .
It combines the Italian magical realism of ancient legends and religious elements, which is refreshing. The first half is the Italian countryside life as beautiful as oil paintings, and the second half is the director's exploration of the (post)modern world where human beings are driving at high speed.
The two seemingly split parts are subtly connected by the magical realism of Lazaro's fate, which enhances the film's appeal in the neat and delicate structure. And the density and sophistication of information contained in the whole film, I think, is comparable to or even surpassed last year's Palme d'Or "Plaza".
Lazaro is like a young, innocent David, a symbol of the supreme beauty of mankind. Lazaro-style happiness is that there is no desire, no desire, no comparison, no lament about the injustice of life and the difficulty of life, Lazaro's saint-like character (and the legends of saints and wolves that follow him) , perhaps also a near-desperate nostalgia for the so-called beautiful original human nature.
The rural Ukiyo-e in the director's lens is, to a certain extent, a rural version of Italian neorealism in the 1950s. It is not an idyllic pastoral song with simple human feelings, but a naked human nature that is exposed to nature and returns to primitive instincts. Everyone exploits Lazaro, who doesn't resist and doesn't complain, while ignorantly trying to maintain a cannibalistic, higher-level system of exploitation.
Every scene is full of symbolism, and every detail is full of possibilities for endless aftertastes.
Lazaro couldn't bear to wake up the half-sleeping rich young master, so he quietly put down the food beside him. As a result, the young master said "You are blocking the sun", which not only stings the hearts of the viewers, but also serves as a reminder for the young master when the two reunite in the second half of the film. Attitude changes paved the way.
Moderate white space is also very clever.
The impoverished family came as promised, and went to the mansion of the once rich young master, ready to enjoy the lunch he promised yesterday. As a result, it was the former daughter of the daughter and his current wife who opened the door. The young master did not appear in the whole process, and the young lady who no longer had a good time shared their down and down experiences.
The scene "Ask for refreshments" was actually quite unexpected to me, but after watching it, I felt that it was full of weight. The two-minute scene revealed the completely different personalities of the two destitute aristocrats: the young master is still immersed in nihilism and nihilism. In the self-righteous fantasies, the young lady has already faced the bitter reality; it also points out the pre-modern character left in Antonia's past experience as a servant to serve them, which is wonderfully similar to her now struggling to make a living in the city. coexist.
And the film itself is a brilliant allegory about the pre-modern and the modern.
When the camera moved from the countryside to the city, these serfs who were exploited because of ignorance in the past still did not have any livelihood skills, but they quickly learned clever tricks, stealing and robbery in the fast-paced city life and strong desire to survive (concentrated in the On the heroine Antonia). The comparison is truly startling. In this sense, the film not only ruthlessly tore apart the pre-modern, idyllic ideals, but also threw a profound questioning into the modernist world.
It's hard not to think about: what is happiness? How many dimensions does happiness have? What impact does modernity have on the mentality of the public? How do we deal with it?
After leaving the young master's house, the Antonia family drove their only property - a tattered truck home. Following Lazaro's church gospel music, it brought a warm light to these struggling souls, which is also the film The second half is pretty much the only warm moment.
Then there is a cruel ending where the director pushes the audience's doubts to the extreme. Lazzaro, who is so naive as to "can't eat human fireworks", once again took a risk for his friendship with the young master. The reason was bruised.
The moment he fell to the ground, his eyes were still pure and innocent, without a trace of Yihao's resentment.
This is what the world of modernity has done to a world of premodernity, it could have happened in the Age of Navigation, it could have happened in the Americas, it could have happened in this moment—in an unreal and real space-time constructed by cinema.
Seeing that Lazaro was in a pool of blood at the end, he finally couldn't help sobbing. I think every audience who cried because of the ending has their own reasons.
Perhaps the beauty of film is that it acts like a prism, reflecting many different perspectives, viewpoints, and landscapes.
Let's talk about the director.
Italian female director Alice Rohrwacher is regarded as a direct Cannes director and one of the standard bearers of contemporary Italian films.
Her debut feature film "The Eucharist", which tells a religious-related story of self-loss and search from the perspective of a 13-year-old girl, has already attracted widespread attention when she appeared in the Director's Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival in 2011.
In 2014, the second feature film "Miracle" was nominated in the main competition unit and won the Grand Jury Prize as a dark horse, which shows Cannes' affirmation of her.
Four years later, Alice Lorwacher returned to the main competition in Cannes with "Happy Lazzaro", once again proving her unlimited potential as a new generation of writer-director in the European film industry.
As the third feature film, "Lazzaro of Happiness" also inherits Alice's consistent style and creative theme: on the basis of inheriting Italian neorealism, it integrates mysterious elements and magicism, and explores and expresses the modernization process. individual influence.
In terms of film language, it can be seen that "Happy Lazzaro" has made great progress compared with the two previous works, and has approached a state of proficiency. We have no reason not to place more expectations on Alice.
What's interesting is that Alice is not only talented, but also not inferior in appearance. Her older sister is Italian actress Alba Rolvackel. Both sisters have the facial features like portraits in Renaissance paintings, and they inadvertently exude the temperament of classical beauty.
As a female filmmaker, her appearance is more stunning and weighty.
The sister of director Alice Rohrwacher, the Italian actress Alba Rohrvacher, is also one of the leading actors in the film. She won the Venice Actress for her "Hungry Heart" in 2014.
The film's photographer, Helene Louvart, is also a well-known name. She is the royal photographer of famous directors such as Wenders and Varda, and has served as photography for more than 100 films.
She has long-term cooperation with director Alice, and contributed a high-level image language to "Happy Lazzaro". In particular, the neoclassical style of photography in the first half of the film, as well as a group of shots from the legend of Lazaro, coupled with the pure texture of the 16mm film itself, pushes the aesthetics the film intends to convey to the extreme.
It is not difficult to play a character like Lazaro, who has the color of a saint, an angelic character, and is not disturbed by the world.
Speaking of which, I have to admire the skill of the producer and director in casting roles. Adriano Tardiolo, who plays Lazaro, has clear eyes, a soft and innocent temperament, and is exactly the role of Lazaro. realistic version.
Many people sighed after reading it, he is like a little angel, it is hard to believe that there are still such boys in the world today.
Adriano is not a professional actor. He was dug out in a high school. After a long and patient communication with the director, he finally agreed to participate in the role. As a result, this masterpiece is created in which the character and the actor are integrated in the look and feel.
In recent years, many people have begun to sing down contemporary Italian films, but Alice's birth and the stunning appearance of "Happy Lazzaro" have proved to us a kind of sway in Pasolini, Fellini, etc. On the basis of the influence of the predecessors, it is possible to open up a new image style system.
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