The Lizards

Lina Wertmüller’s brilliant first feature chronicles the suffocating structures of small-town life in the south of Italy by focusing on a trio of young men who hang out and daydream, half-heartedly and clumsily stumbling toward unpromising adulthood. Their fathers, business owners, and bureaucrats gripe and scold. Meanwhile, doing their best to sidestep patriarchal limitations, the women and girls try to get on with their own lives. Cinematographer Gianni Di Venanzo (8 1/2, L’eclisse) brings an elegant modern sensibility to the old-world environs, and Ennio Morricone’s inventive score for what he described as his first “auteur film” adds a wry, poignant atmosphere.