Sections

Rohrwacher a hit in Cannes with 'medieval' tale

Italian director dedicates triumphant reception to Olmi

Rohrwacher a hit in Cannes with 'medieval' tale

Redazione Ansa

(ANSA) - Cannes, May 14 - The 'medieval' tale charting the relationship between a peasant and a local aristocrat Happy As Lazzaro, by Italian filmmaker Alice Rohrwacher, was applauded for 10 minutes when it premiered on Sunday night at the Cannes Film Festival.
    Rohrwacher, 35, is competing for a Palme d'Or with her class-divide film after winning the Grand Prix in 2014 with The Wonders. "I finished the movie only on Wednesday, coming here was a real bet and I didn't expect anything", she said, describing her third feature film as "bizarre and free".
    The director dedicated her movie's successful debut to Ermanno Olmi, the Italian director who won the Palme d'Or for his 1978 film The Tree of Wooden Clogs who died earlier this month at 86.
    "We miss his insight", she said.
    "I had the strong desire to show him the film but unfortunately I didn't make it on time".
    In Happy As Lazzaro, a rich aristocrat in the 1980s takes advantage of her estate's isolation in central Italy to practice sharecropping, keeping her unpaid workers unaware of their rights.
    Rohrwacher's tale, which appears to embrace recent history and the the Middle Ages, is seen through the eyes of a young peasant, Lazzaro, interpreted by Adriano Tardiolo in his first role.
    Lazzaro is a good soul who defies rationality in a story that straddles the present and past and has a strong religious undertone, Alice Rohrwacher said.
    "Lazzaro doesn't judge but has unconditional confidence" in people, the director told ANSA.
    She said the film's inspirations included, "in the prehistoric sense of the term" the story of Saint Francis, as well as "a book for children that has enchanted me, by Chiara Frugoni, in which a wolf doesn't eat the protagonist because he is good, something that happens to Lazzaro".
    "Sharecropping only ended in 1982 and I experienced that time and wanted to talk about this memory of farming before it disappears", also said Rohrwacher.
   

Leggi l'articolo completo su ANSA.it