Over 15 years ago, Israeli playwright Joshua Sobol had a tremendous run at the National Theatre in London with his play Ghetto. The play told the story of a theatre group performing amid the madness of the Warsaw ghetto. In the play, one group objects to the existence of the troupe claiming that any levity in the context of the surrounding atrocities was dishonourable and in poor taste. The counter argument is that the refusal to perform, the denial of art, humour, life represents victory for the anti-humanity of the Nazis.
Robert Benigni’s wonderful movie covers much of the same ground and sparked many similar discussions upon its US release in 1998 (1999 in the UK).
Benigni won an Academy Award for his performance as Guido. At the start of the film we see Giudo fall in love and woo his principessa, Dora, played by Nicoletta Braschi. The chemistry between these two performers is utterly charming. Married in real life, Benigni and Braschi are such an unlikely looking couple that you cannot help but believe their happiness at finding each other.
They have a son, Giosué, and they seem to be perfectly happy. But then the movie takes a sinister turn. Guido is a Jew. He is arrested by the Italian police and sent to a concentration camp. Dora refuses to identify herself as anything other than her husband’s wife and she is taken too. Somehow Giosué ends up traveling with his father without their captors knowing and Guido decides that the only way to rationalize their lives from this point forward is to pretend to his son that it is all a game. Guido explains the points system to his son warning him that he will lose points if the guards ever spot him or if he cries or if he asks to see his mother.
Even writing this now I am aware what a bold movie this is. Benigni’s father was a prisoner in Belsen from 1943-45 and he wrote at the time that his screenplay was dedicated to the people who were held with his father and to the stories that survived. It is overly simplistic to suggest that the movie is life affirming. There are too many unmarked graves for this to be the case, but Life is Beautiful is a smart, funny and honourable fiction about human beings in man’s darkest hour.
The DVD is available from Amazon.co.uk for £6.97 and rated PG.
The DVD is in Italian with subtitles although it may also be watched with a dubbed English soundtrack. There are no special features.
Pictures of Life Is Beautiful (DVD)
Benigni with his two Oscars
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This is the best kind of tragicomedy, or comitragedy as the comedy tends to precede the tragedy. Why some people thought it offensive is completely beyond me.
pippilli 16.10.2005 19:06
One of my favourite films, i wil have to buy the DVD now! Cheers, pippa
groinstraddle 12.07.2005 23:42
Nice fact about Benigni’s father - I did not know that. A legendary film, and a nice review. Laters!
Italy's rubber-faced funnyman Roberto Benigni accomplishes the impossible in his World War ... more
II comedyLife Is Beautiful: he shapes a simultaneously hilarious and haunting comedy out of the tragedy of the Holocaust. An internationalsensation and the most ...
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Italy's rubber-faced funnyman Roberto Benigni accomplishes the impossible in his World War ... more
II comedyLife Is Beautiful: he shapes a simultaneously hilarious and haunting comedy out of the tragedy of the Holocaust. An internationalsensation and the most ...
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![Life Is Beautiful [DVD] [1999]](http://picnica.ciao.com/uk/78551120.jpg "Life Is Beautiful [DVD] [1999]")
Mar 16th, 2005
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