Date/Time
Friday 28 July 2023
7:30 pm - 10:00 pm
Categories Cinema
Book here now: £9 full price • £7or £5 if you prefer – please pay what you can*
Based on real life events in Italy in the 1980s, Happy as Lazzaro tells the story of a pure-hearted young man in a poor village in southern Italy. But then the twist comes, unearthing some of what’s really going on while keeping Lazzaro’s goodness, and the happiness he derives from that goodness, intact. The result is a realist tale about labour, class, and cruelty, while also being a moral fable with a fantastical core.
Alice Rohrwacher’s beautiful and mysterious film Happy As Lazzaro flowers into something inexpressibly moving, yet also disturbing and unaccountable. It is a pastoral enigma, and a satirical attack on exploitative feudal snobbery that may be closer to Italy’s present day than is widely assumed – and also a tale of reincarnation or time travel whose hero is a cross between two figures from the Bible: Lazarus and the Christ Child. Intriguingly, the director has revealed it is inspired by a newspaper story she remembers seeing some years ago.
***** The Guardian
91% at Rotten Tomatoes
* See Access, Tickets & Finding Us for more about why there are three ticket prices, plus other useful info about coming to events at Ashburton Arts Centre.