It starts as a not unusual scene in Italy, or at least a not unusual one in Naples: a motorist stubbornly attempting to defy the rules of geometry, in this instance by trying to execute a U-turn on a narrow street.

To the amusement of onlookers, he succeeds in getting himself hopelessly wedged between the cars parked on either side of the street so that the traffic is blocked in both directions.

But was it real, though, when events transformed the scene into one so surreal and transcendentally Italian that even the humourist Giovannino Guareschi, the creator of Don Camillo, might have rejected it as too improbable for fiction?

Apparently not. The video, which shows a squadron of bikers turning up; then, a religious procession, flanked by yellow-jacketed members of the civil defence service, is now thought to be a fake.

As is standard in such cases, the video shows lots of unwanted and conflicting advice is given. Tempers flare. Arms wave. But, in the end, and – as usually happens in Italy – fury and frustration quickly give way to good-humoured resignation; a solution is found – thanks to divine intervention – and the motorist drives off to ironic applause and shouts of "Bravo!"

• This article was amended on 11 February 2013 after doubts surfaced about the authenticity of the video