From time to time, once every few years, comes a movie that does not look like anything I've seen before as a passionate cinema fan. It's what's going on with 'Lazarro felice', the film made by the Italian director Alice Rohrwacher. A special, beautiful, one-of-a-kind movie, one of those movies that after watching you have the feeling that you've made new acquaintances within its characters and, if you're not too cynical, you've become a little better than before seeing it.

'Lazarro felice' is one of those films that have an atemporal character, even as the story takes place in a well defined period of time, if we look for example, at the technical accessories used by heroes such as their portable phones. I believe that viewers over 20, 50 or 100 years will understand the metaphor in the spirit of their times. The story of the film combines social and even political elements (social class gaps, labor exploitation of the poor, the bad influence of the tobacco monopoly) characteristic of Neorealism with a powerful magic and religious message. Lazarro, the poor peasant boy in the film, is destined by name but especially by his character and deeds to follow the canons of Catholic Christianity, only that today's world has no respect for those who have a tendency to holiness, exploits them physically and sentimentally, and eventually destroys them. The Biblical story does not tell us what happened to St. Lazarus after the resurrection by Jesus four days after his death. In Alice Rohrwacher's film, in a world that is perhaps our world, he dies the the second time, killed by the people around unable to understand his intentions.'Lazarro felice' may feature in the repertoire of Catholic film festivals, but attention - his resurrection is far from being Christian, the legend of the wolf has origins much older than Christianity in the mythologies of the area we now call Italy.

Good films in the fantasy genre are characterized by the fact that they absorb you in the story beyond the point where you feel the need to check the credibility of the facts that happen on the screen. Just as true believers who do not question the miracles in the Bible, the viewers of this film will not question what Lazarro can do. Much of the merit lies with the actor who plays the lead role, whose name is Adriano Tardiolo. He is at his first film and lives exceptionally in his role. As a matter of fact, a large part of the cast is made up of unprofessional actors, a world of the poor, located at the beginning at the periphery of the geography and later of the society in which the story takes place. A profoundly human world, but one under threat, which only miracles can help survive. Director Alice Rohrwacher made a beautiful film. She is a new and clear voice in the Italian cinema landscape. I'm waiting for many other great movies from her.

"Happy as Lazzaro" feels like a parable with hints of magical realism, and the whole thing was just a bit too obtuse for me to fully enjoy.

There are themes of social repression, economic exploitation, and mankind's abandonment of nature for the more soulless landscapes of urban industrialization, all of which are certainly relevant to the world in which we live. But I found myself hard pressed to feel involved in any of it as explored by this film. Lazzaro is more an idea than an actual character, and I think one of the reasons he's offered as such a blank slate is so that the audience can project on to him whatever they want. I imagine there will be all sorts of different interpretations of this film, who Lazzaro is, and what it is he's meant to signify. I can and have expended that kind of mental energy on answering questions in other movies, and usually enjoy it very much, but I have to feel like the questions are going to be worth answering before I can get my head in that zone, and I didn't with this movie.

Grade: B