Although there are some hints of modern objects, the film "Happy Lazaro" still has a vague sense of its age. I would have thought this was a nineteenth century farm where the tenant farmers lived happily together. One night, a pair of young people happily announced their union to everyone, saying that they would go outside to find opportunities. People in the small town lived a life of poverty but indifference to the world. It was only later that the intrusion of the Marchioness and her son brought more earthly modernity into the small village, or just in the movie's timeline. However, on the one hand, the marquise is full of history, and on the other hand, it is their rather modern dress and the electronic products they bring. The sense of age began to be a little confusing, as if a fable was being staged, but the director Rohrwacher would not explain the age clearly unless he had to.
The protagonist Lazaro, even in this uncontested village, is the purest one. What a pure and flawless face on the uneven body, and a pair of big flashing eyes quietly looking at the outside world. For him, he does not know the hostility of the world. The Marquise's son, Tancredi, calls him his friend, which is more of an exploit than a friend. Tancredi asked Lazaro to take himself to a secret place outside the village, pretended to kidnap, and wrote to his mother to extort money to rebel and threaten. Lazaro actually became Tancredi's accomplice in this matter, but we still can't blame him for his innocence.
The first half of the film ends when Tancredi is "bound" and the daughter of the Marquis reports the crime. Lazaro and the people in the village were intimidated by the "unsolicited" helicopters, unaware that there were no tenant farmers or unpaid debts. They were "driven" out of the peach blossom village called Inviolata and into the city life. Until this moment, we do not know the age of the film. As for Lazaro, he fell unconscious after being frightened by the helicopter.
In the second half of the film, the villagers of Inviolata, Tancredi and Lazaro successively enter the modern city. The villagers seem to be well integrated into modern life, but they live on the bottom of the city, relying on some robbery and abduction. On the other hand, since they can steal and abduct, they also apply for their "adaptive" ability. Tancredi is quite abysmal. He was holding the air of a marquis, with the old dog in his arms, and he didn't know how to pass these years. I don't know if the director did it on purpose, because the traces of time on Tancredi are bigger than others, and he has become a little old man.
Time stopped on Lazaro. He seemed to have traveled through ten or twenty years at once, and only survived in this world with the care of his former farm partners. He still treats everything with innocence and sees the world in the most primitive and easily explained way. He roamed the world like a lone wolf, but it was all in spirit. What kind of imprint did feudalism and modern capitalism have on Lazaro, and is the course of history really always a kind of social progress?
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