It's clearly the work of it's director, who looks at the past through golden filters, but this time the cynical comedy of Pietro Germi has moved in.
We find ourselves seeing a version of the director's grandmother's story, set among impoverished share croppers and fellers who only want one thing. Cesare Cremoni has had too much of that to fit in a single snap shot but the local beauty is spoken for, so the offer of a new motorbike sends him off to call on the land lord's two over age but rather winning daughters. However that plan hits the shredder, when the man's step daughter Ramazzotti arrives from her upbringing with the Roman nuns.
Calamities accumulate but we retain sympathy for these awful but endearing people, as the plot takes unexpected twists and the serious note they introduce is genuinely involving.
Things are nicely distanced by Haber's voice-over, as the young brother, who we expected to have a larger part in the outcome, now grown.
Avarti's usual collaborators are right on the top of their game. It's a bit disturbing to see the glamorous Erica Blanc and Sydney Rome as rural grotesques.
Who is it thinks HOLY MOTORS and BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD should go round the world in the spot that Avarti's phenomenal output ought to occupy?
