Life is Beautiful Review
by "Kleszczewski, Nicholas" (Nicholas DOT Kleszczewski AT pepsico DOT com)November 15th, 1998
Life Is Beautiful
What a great film. What a stunning, touching, heart-wrenching, heart-warming, life-affirming, miraculous film.
>From its opening moments, _Life is Beautiful_ walks that fine line between serious tragedy and uplifting comedy. A car with no brakes speeds through the town, and Guido (Roberto Benigni) motions people to move out of the way. They mistake him to be the Fascist president, traveling to their town that day. Heil! Heil! Huh? Shortly thereafter, the president drives through, and people stare, with blank faces.
This is standard, but somehow fresh and postmodern stuff: the clown who is also a Jew, triumphs over the anti-Semitic society in which he = lives. Granted, _The Great Dictator_ comes to mind--Charlie Chaplin+s almost masterpiece. I think LIB (which Benigni wrote and directed) trumps GD in one essential point: Chaplin+s Jewish Barber gives a great speech at the climax, but to do so, he had to break completely from character. Benigni is given a similar situation: he is mistaken as a Fascist dignitary, and must explain to a classroom filled with schoolchildren = on how scientists have concluded that Aryans are the superior race. Benigni+s Guido stays in character, and delivers the speech, keeping = the subject matter intact while showing the absurdity of its concept. It = is one of the great satirical scenes in modern cinema.
There are many other scenes, especially in the first half, which are bright and loopy and funny and silly. Slapstick reigns, and although the film is subtitled, there was no doubt that a universal language was being conveyed. And although it+s focus is on the courtship of Guido = to Dora (played by Nicoletta Braschi, Benigni+s real life wife), a silent undercurrent creeps in. This is clearly a racist society, evidenced by the aforementioned scene and others, and it will soon affect him and = his family.
The second half of the film takes place five years later, in an unnamed concentration camp, where Guido, Dora (by her insistence), and their five-year old son, Giosu=E9 (Giorgio Cantarini), are deported. Guido, seeing the horrors, is desperate to protect his wife and child. For = his wife, who is separated from him, he must find ways to communicate to = her that he is all right. For his son, (and this is the most controversial part of the film) he convinces the youngster that this is all one big elaborate game: it+s rules include hiding, being very quiet, and learning to not ask for seconds.
Which raises the big questions: How do we deal with pain? With persecution? With injustice on the worst level? It+s said that tragedies bring out the best in people, finding strengths they did not realize they had. Other times they deteriorate, become overwhelmed = with little strength or incentive to swim. Sometimes even, people giggle in these moments, as if there were a vacant emotion behind them, yearning for some brightness to soothe their wounds.
Benigni+s Guido realizes this. He is the clown, but he is not a fool. He sees the slurs and the vandalism, and while feeling the weight of = the verbal attacks, he still has the audacity to see if everyone around = him, perhaps even the antagonists, laugh. His liberty is stripped, but not his dignity, and certainly not the dignities of those around him. It+s obvious from the onset that here is someone who is very much against Fascism and the preposterousness of an Aryan nation, but does so with a grinning, joyful demeanor.
Perhaps that is a form of denial. Perhaps his alternate reality is all that he could muster (not unlike the very different _Brazil_). Or... perhaps this is an example of great fortitude, with no weapons but = wit. Whatever his purposes is subject to debate, but also a sure sign that this is one of the great three-dimensional characters, stranded amidst = a terrifyingly risky concept. Surprisingly, it works.
It is an important footnote that this film was not intended to be an accurate reflection of the holocaust. It+s not that the atrocities are trivialized, far from it. They don+t have to be broadcast and explicitly shown to muster the same horror--less is more. I believe = that Benigni was cautious to preserve the tone, and I like the theory that = it is Guido+s alternate reality that we+re seeing. However, any criticism that this is rewriting history, that the holocaust wasn+t as bad as it seems, is simply off-target.
Benigni+s film has won audience awards at Cannes, at Toronto, and is a definite shoo-in for Best Foreign Language film (hopefully for Best Picture as well). He has been made an honorary Jew by a Jerusalem film society. It swept the Italian Academy awards. Controversy notwithstanding, it is one of the great films this year, and as of this writing, the one to beat for best film. Masterful. Miraculous. A must-see.
Nick Scale (1 to 10): 10
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