Pulcinella is sent by his family, from the depths of Vesuvius, to today’s Campania to fulfill the last wishes of Tommaso, a simple shepherd: he is to save Sarchiapone, a condemned buffalo who has been deemed unnecessary. In the fields of Carditello, a Bourbon residence in ruins of which Tommaso was in charge, Pulcinella finds the little buffalo and accompanies him to the North. The two servants, man and animal, undertake a long journey through the lands of Italy ...

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From its first moments, when a subjective camera meets the gaze of the buffalo in the heart of the plot, Beautiful and Lost is clearly an odd movie, halfway between the modern and the archaic. A kind of spooky road movie dotted with fabulous scenery and metaphorical encounters, Pietro Marcello’s film is certainly beautiful, with a refined mise en scene, often beautiful art direction and spellbinding viewpoints – the story is narrated by the strange voice of the buffalo. But it matches a little too well with its title: Pulcinella’s strange journey is very long and winding, soon losing the audience, whose initial curiosity is quickly transformed into boredom.