[Like] so many of the current generation of Italian directors …, Lina Wertmüller is building on Italy's neorealist history [in The Lizards] and using as raw material the ambivalent face of a country that, in its infinitely varied sociology, is like a microcosm of the world. In the Italian cinema neorealism is no longer an idea but an instinct, an inherited gift that, coupled with a good script, can scarcely produce a bad film. It is not therefore as surprising as it would be anywhere else to find, in Italy, a new director who can perfectly evoke a way of life—especially when, like Lina Wertmüller, she can write her own quietly effective script. The Lizards … seems, in fact, so basically unassuming that it is very easy to fall into the error of regarding it as documentary instead of the very visual kind of drama that it...