Life Is Beautiful [DVD] [1999]

I spent a long time trying to think of an adequate word to describe this film after I had watched it and that was the only one that came close to doing it justice. Put quite simply this film is a masterpiece. The menagerie of emotions it evokes is unlike anything I have ever witnessed. You'll laugh until tears stream down your cheeks, you will try your hardest to bite back tears and when the film is over you will sit in abject silence, merely thinking about what you have just witnessed. Whether you adore it or not it cannot be denied that Life Is Beautiful is a film you simply cannot forget as quickly as you turn it off.

Roberto Benigni slides into the role of Guido easily, a role that he puts his stamp on and makes unforgettable almost immediately. I will refrain from writing a synopsis as this is already provided although the story itself is fantastically written, dividing the film into two halves. One light and humorous the other dark and poignant yet still retaining a few laughs ('...because I just had to have a jam sandwich!').

The only recommendation I can make to those watching it for the first time is to forget about the dubbing. Watch it through in the original Italian with english subtitles and it makes for a much more enjoyable watch. The emotion given to Guido by Benigni is portrayed through his words as well as actions and the effect is all but lost in the dubbing.

I was surprised to hear from a friend recently that a lot of people considered this film controversial. Apparently it is insensitive to the topic and approaches it in a manner that lacks the proper respect. Never have I heard such contrived nonsense.

The film deals with its subject matter in an extremely unique way, choosing to consentrate on Guido's love for his son and the way in which it is this love that makes him persevere (see the scene in which he gets back from working in the camp and instantly changes his expression upon seeing his son) rather than merely opting for the usual shock values of the camps. If you want a film without anything uplifting, if you're looking for a doom and gloom picture about the visual images of life in the concentration camps them opt for Schindlers list. Life is Beautiful goes further than this. It shows the development of a man, a man whose life revolves around his interactions with other people, a man whose love for his son is so much that his resolve cannot be broken even by the harshest of treatment of conditions. But most of all Life is Beautiful is about emotions in their simplest forms. Whether its love, laughter, fear or sorrow, you will find and feel them all with this film. One thing I can guarantee you is this, by the end of the film you will certainly be debating its title.

Despite the frantic comedy, however, the fascist dictatorship and the growing anti-semitism loom constantly in the background, as Guido's uncle (Giustino Durano) is assaulted, his horse is painted green, and a local school principal talks about getting rid of defectives. After a lovely segue to represent the passage of six years or so, we again see Guido, now married to his beautiful Dora (Nicoletta Braschi), and meet Giosue Orifice, his son, winningly played by six-year-old Giorgio Cantorini. Totally committed to protecting his son from the horrors of anti-semitism, Giorgio turns everything into a joke.

When the family is eventually rounded up and shipped to a concentration camp, Guido turns the event into a "birthday surprise" for Giosue and tries to ensure his survival by pretending that all the events are part of a huge game, with the winner getting a full-sized tank. Disappearances from the camp are explained as people dropping out of the game.

In some ways, Guido's game-playing sets the reality of the concentration camps into sharp relief, intensifying the horror by showing the lengths to which a father will go to protect the innocence of his child. The viewer knows that the game is a pitiful, and ultimately hopeless, attempt to hold back the reality of the Final Solution but cannot help hoping that against all odds, somehow Guido and Giosue will win. The horrors of the Holocaust are obvious here, and the ironies of seeing both Guido and his captors all playing some sort of macabre "game" will not be lost on the viewer.

I thoroughly enjoyed Benigni's pratfalls, his touching attention to his family, the music (by Nicola Piovani, which also won an Academy Award), and the cleverness of the plot. But I also found that my realistic knowledge of the Holocaust was so overwhelming I could not "suspend [my] disbelief," and I was unable to appreciate the film as the wonder-filled "fable" Benigni intended. Mary Whipple