Life is Beautiful
Miramax, 1998 (Italian with English subtitles)
Directed by Roberto Benigni

$$$$

It's too bad the Nazis chose Triumph of the Will as the title for one of their propaganda films. It would have made an apt moniker for Roberto Benigni's touching holocaust survival story Life is Beautiful. The story of how one man confronts the ultimate horror with laughter and dignity, it carries a simple message: never give up.

Told in two acts, the film's first half is an innocent comedy. Benigni is Guido, a waiter at a fancy hotel in World War II-era Italy. The tone is light and playful as Guido woos, Dora, a beautiful school teacher, away from her fiance, an uptight bureaucrat. Guido's determination to win the girl becomes the main joke. It is that same determination which will drive the film's more tragic second half. The mood of the first section remains innocent, despite brief references to the superiority of the Aryan race and a scene where a horse is painted with an anti-Semitic slur. We don't even find out Guido is Jewish until about 45 minutes into the film.

As the movie's second hour begins, things start to get worse. It is years later. Guido is running a bookstore; he and Dora are married and they have a young son, Joshua. One day, the boy asks his father why some stores have put out signs reading "no Jews or dogs allowed." Guido, shielding the child from the increasing hostility of the surroundings, tells his son the signs are no reason for worry.

Later, when the family is taken to a concentration camp, Guido convinces his son that it's all just a game. By listening and sticking to the rules, he tells the boy, their "team" can win first prize. It's Guido's way of motivating the child to do what it takes to stay alive. On work detail, we see the harshness of the camp is getting to Guido, but in front of the boy he keeps up the happy facade that the camp is all just for fun.

Benigni's physical humor transcends the language barrier, and his performance here shows why many have often compared him to Chaplin. Benigni is brilliant behind the camera as well, handling the film's delicate balance of comedy and tragedy with a deftness that is truly remarkable. In staging scenes of slapstick amidst the greatest horror of the 20th century, the actor/director manages to avoid tastelessness. That is an extraordinary achievement in and of itself.

Life is Beautiful will draw inevitable parallels to the other widely lauded holocaust drama of this decade, Schindler's List. While lacking that film's visceral depiction of the atrocities, Life is Beautiful surpasses the latter film by showing us the tragedy through the eyes of the victims. And in providing us with a leisurely view of peaceful life before the concentration camps, Life is Beautiful makes the loss of that innocent existence seem that much more tragic. It's a beautiful film.

(c) Copyright 1999