In this WW II tragicomedy, famed Italian funnyman Roberto Benigni (The Monster) portrays Guido, who moves during the '30s from the country to a Tuscan town, where he is entranced by schoolteacher Dora (Nicoletta Braschi, Benigni's real-life wife). Dora likes Guido, but she remains faithful to her pompous fiancé, so Guido has an uphill struggle. Meanwhile, anti-Semitic attitudes lead to attacks against Guido's Jewish uncle (Giustino Durano). Leaping ahead to five years later, during WW II, Guido and Dora are married and have a son Giosue (Giorgio Cantarini). After they are imprisoned in a concentration camp, Guido goes to elaborate lengths to keep his son from understanding the truth of their situation. He tells the boy that they are competing with others to win an armored tank -- so everything from food shortages to tattoos is explained as necessary for participation in the contest. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
Review
Life is Beautiful caused more than a little controversy when it was released: any attempt to make comedy out of the Holocaust is going to inspire strong reactions from critics and audience members. Love it or loathe it, Life is Beautiful inarguably made an international star out of Italian comedian Roberto Benigni, who wrote, directed, and starred in it. One of his country's most celebrated comedians, Benigni was previously known for his work in numerous Italian comedies, as well as Johnny Stecchino and Jim Jarmusch's Down By Law and Night on Earth. Life is Beautiful's Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, followed by Benigni's Best Actor Oscar and acceptance speech (in exuberant, skillfully broken English), made Benigni possibly Italy's most famous export since the Fiat. Although some viewers found the film's second half, set almost entirely in a concentration camp, to be well-meaning but misguided, the film's first half is indisputably enjoyable. Revolving around the courtship of an aristocratic lady nicknamed the Principessa by Benigni's Guido, it makes a refreshing, elegantly hilarious love story. Somewhat ironically, the film's wittiest and most accurate commentary on fascism and religious oppression is contained here, rather than in the concentration camp setting. Benigni's comedy here becomes a tool for side-splitting yet razor-sharp criticism, and this first section powerfully establishes the reality of everyday life disrupted by the war. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide
The first half of the movie is a whimsical, romantic comedy and often slapstick. Guido Orefice (Roberto Benigni), a young Italian Jew, arrives in Arezzo where he plans to set up a bookstore, taking a job in the interim as a waiter. He lives with his uncle Eliseo. Guido is both funny and charismatic, especially when he romances Dora (Italian, but not Jewish, and portrayed by Benigni's actual wife Nicoletta Braschi), whom he steals—at her engagement—from her rude and loud fiancé. Several years pass in which Guido and Dora have a son, Joshua (Giorgio Cantarini). In the film, Joshua is around four and a half years old, however both the beginning and ending of the film are narrated by an older Joshua.
In the second half, Guido, Uncle Eliseo and Joshua are taken to a concentration camp on Joshua's birthday. Dora demands to join her family and is permitted to do so. When Dora boards the train she is the only one wearing red, as everyone else is wearing dark coloured clothes. Guido hides Joshua from the Nazi guards and sneaks him food. Uncle Eliseo is gassed to death, though the others do not know. In an attempt to keep up Joshua's spirits, Guido convinces Joshua that the camp is just a game, in which the first person to get 1,000 points wins a tank. He tells Joshua that if he cries, complains that he wants his mother or complains that he is hungry, he will lose points, while quiet boys who hide from the camp guards earn 1,000 points. To further prove that the camp is a game he pretends to translate the guard's instructions.
Guido convinces Joshua that the camp guards are mean because they want the tank for themselves and that all the other children are hiding in order to win the game. He puts off every attempt of Joshua ending the game and returning home by convincing him that they are in the lead for the tank. Despite being surrounded by rampant death and people and all their sicknesses, Joshua does not question this fiction because of his father's convincing performance and his own innocence.
Guido maintains this story right until the end, when—in the chaos caused by the American advance–he tells his son to stay in a sweatbox until everybody has left, this being the final test before the tank is his. After trying to find Dora, Guido is caught, taken away and shot by a Nazi guard, but not before making his son laugh one last time by imitating the Nazi guard as if the two of them are marching around the camp together. Joshua manages to survive and thinks he has won the game when an American tank arrives to liberate the camp. He is reunited with his mother, not knowing that his father has died. Years later, he realizes the sacrifice his father made for him gave him the chance to live.
The film was financially successful, earning 23 million euro in Italy (1997-1998). In the United States, the film earned $59 million.
The film currently holds a 78% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Despite a strong performance at the box office, many reviewers were critical of the film for its use of humor in depicting the Holocaust.[who?]
Berlinguer: I Love You (1977) (with Giuseppe Bertolucci) ·Seeking Asylum (1979) (with Gérard Brach and Marco Ferreri) ·Tutto Benigni (1983) (with Giuseppe Bertolucci)
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