Directed by: Roberto Benigni
Starring: Roberto Benigni, Nicoletta Braschi, Horst Buchholz, Giorgio Cantarini
It has been roughly twenty years between viewings of Life Is Beautiful. I was much more taken with it the first time. A recent viewing left me feeling uneven about it. It contains moments of pure power, romance, and joy, while shoehorning in the Holocaust. It feels like two different movies; with the first movie more successful than the second one.
Life Is Beautiful stars (and is directed by) Roberto Benigni, whose most famous movie credit in America before this film was Son of the Pink Panther. Benigni won a Best Actor Oscar for his role here as Guido, a Jewish waiter in pre-World War II Italy who wins the heart of his beloved from an ill-conceived engagement to a local fascist. His career trajectory hasn't exactly pointed upward since his Oscar win, in which his acceptance speeches (he also won for Foreign Language Film) included Benigni standing on top of the theater seats. His next film was a remake of Pinocchio roughly four years after Life Is Beautiful, and a prime example of someone who struck while the iron was cold.
The first half of the film is romantic whimsy meets slapstick and it works surprisingly well. Benigni charms his way into Dora's (Braschi-Benigni's real life wife) heart and at the same time debunks the cruel beliefs of fascism. Their marital bliss bears them a son named Joshua (Cantarini), but soon wedded bliss gives way to the reality of the Holocaust. Guido and Joshua are taken from their home and put on the trains to a concentration camp. Dora insists on being near her family and also boards the train.
Joshua is at first frightened by the train, pointing out that it has no seats, but Guido quickly devises a lie to his son to protect him from the harsh reality. He tells Joshua the entire trip is one big game and the winner will receive an actual tank. Joshua believes him, while his father sizes up the gravity of their situation and the heartbreak of being so close to his wife and not being able to see her. The trouble is, the concentration camp in Life Is Beautiful is rather sanitized as these things go. It is more along the lines of the camp Hogan's Heroes took place in. The atrocities are kept off screen, but that also robs Guido's actions of their gravitas. Let's face it. Guido is given an awful lot of leeway to scamper around the camp to do his thing, including using the camp loudspeaker to call out to his beloved Dora.
Benigni is not interested in making a heavy Holocaust drama , but instead a tale of a clownish man who uses his sense of humor to deflect the truth from his son. I enjoyed the cheerfulness of the first half so much that it was able to carry enough goodwill through the clunky second half. Benigni is in his element here doing physical comedy. There is always another story to be told about the Holocaust, and Benigni deserves praise for attempting to lighten it up somewhat, but maybe some subjects aren't necessarily able to be lightened.
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