(Tancredi, in a letter Lazzaro carries across decades):
The first half is set on an isolated tobacco plantation where a group of sharecroppers lives in archaic servitude, unaware that such labor has long been illegal.
Here, Lazzaro befriends the Marchesa’s spoiled, neurotic son, Tancredi. In a childish game, Tancredi declares Lazzaro his "half-brother" and concocts a fake kidnapping plot to extort money from his mother. When the scheme fails, the Carabinieri finally discover Inviolata, liberating the peasants. But in a surreal twist, Lazzaro falls from a cliff during the chaos. happy.as.lazzaro.2018
Rohrwacher shoots this section of the film with a grainy, 16mm texture that evokes the history of Italian cinema, specifically the works of Pasolini and Olmi. The camera lingers on faces weathered by the sun and hands stained by tobacco juice. It feels real, gritty, and oppressive. The sharecroppers are trapped in a cycle of debt and servitude, accepting their lot with a shrug of resignation.
In the years since, the film has gained a cult following. Clips of Lazzaro’s beatific smile have become minor memes—usually captioned with lines like "Me pretending everything is fine" or "The face you make when the world is burning but you’ve found inner peace." However, these memes risk reducing the film’s complexity. Lazzaro is not ignorant; he is enlightened. (Tancredi, in a letter Lazzaro carries across decades):
Rohrwacher presents Lazzaro’s happiness as a pre-lapsarian state—a grace that existed before the "fall" of human greed and cynicism. In a world that defines happiness as the absence of pain, Lazzaro defines it as the acceptance of reality. When a worker steals his bread, Lazzaro is not angry; he is simply glad that the worker has been fed. When he is frozen cold, he does not curse the night; he endures.
In this world, the Marchesa uses a bizarre justification for their slavery: she claims they are "inventing" their payments, essentially gaslighting an entire village into believing that working for free is a privilege. When the scheme fails, the Carabinieri finally discover
Alice Rohrwacher’s (2018) is a surreal, Cannes-winning masterpiece that blends Italian neorealism with dreamlike magical realism. It serves as a haunting critique of predatory capitalism and the persistent nature of human exploitation across different eras. 1. The Core Narrative: A Tale of Two Italies
Beyond the poetry, Happy as Lazzaro is a razor-sharp critique of labor exploitation. The peasants of Inviolata believe they are free because the chains are invisible. They work for the Marchesa because they think they owe her money. When they are "liberated" into the modern city, they end up working for a "Mr. Ultimate" (a pun on "Ultimo," meaning "the last")—a corporate boss who is merely the Marchesa in a suit.
The brilliance of Happy as Lazzaro lies in its shocking midpoint pivot. Without spoiling the mechanism of the shift, the film moves from the sun-drenched, timeless hills of the Italian countryside to the cold, concrete outskirts of a modern city. While the world around him ages, decays, and succumbs to the frantic pace of the 21st century, Lazzaro remains unchanged.