Lazzaro is a young poor who is so kind. Tancredi is Lazzaro's best friend although he comes from a very rich family. They find happiness at their friendship. Things turn upside down when Tancredi has to leave the village and go to the city. Lazzaro can't bear the leaving of his best friend, he begins an exciting travel searching for Tancredi inside the wide city.
Rohrwacher isn't interested in resurrecting the ghosts of movies past so much as channeling the Brothers Grimm. She does not want to just show you pretty pictures, but a genuine vision.
Easily among this year's finest films and laced with an unapologetic social message, 'Happy As Lazzaro' dares one to imagine a reality where each individual would task themselves to be as selfless and morally whole as its main protagonist.
This movie feels bracingly new and also like something that has been here forever. It has the urgency of a news bulletin and the authority of a classic.
[Happy as Lazzaro] is a true standout: a Super 16mm fugue state that is both elegy and lament for a world that once valued selfless deeds and the humanistic interaction between fellow men above self-preservation and eternal mistrust.
[Rohrwacher] provides the truth of our collective contemporary paranoia. Rather than see [Lazzaro] as a saint to exploit, he becomes a devil harboring ulterior motives.
Part of the movie's fun - and it is fun, once you adjust to its uninsistent rhythms - is how it forces you to share Lazarro's go-along-to-get-along ebullience.