Life is Beautiful (La vita è bella) (1997)

Director: Roberto Benigni
Story: Vincenzo Cerami, Roberto Benigni
Cast: Roberto Benigni, Nicoletta Braschi, Giorgio Cantarini
Music: Nicola Piovani
Time: 116 minutes
Bottom-line: A beautiful film, with a lasting impact

So far I have written reviews for English, Hindi and Tamil films, and recently I decided to try something different. So (thanks to a friend who had the CD of the film) I thought I would watch an Italian film, and I believe Life is Beautiful is the perfect choice for a first film. Directed by - and starring - Roberto Benigni, the film is set during the Second World War, in a German concentration camp. The film won the Academy Award for the Best Foreign Film, and was also nominated for Best Picture.

1939, Italy: Guido Orefice (Benigni) is a smart, comical man who makes the most of all opportunities. When he travels to the city, he meets Dora (Braschi), and eventually they marry, and have a son called Joshua (Cantarini). On Joshua’s birthday, he is captured, along with Guido and his uncle, by the Germans. They are taken to a concentration camp, and Dora also willingly joins them. To hide the atrocities of the camp from his son, Guido does all sorts of things and creates an incredible story of how things actually work at the camp. What Guido does to save his son from the horrors is told in the second part of the film.

Benigni as Guido (right)

The first half of the story - i.e. until Guido and his son are captured by the Germans - is pure fun. It is all about how Guido tries to make Dora love him, and how he makes the most of opportunities all the time. The first half does not really contribute to the main story, but it helps to build the characters. But the real story begins after they are captured and taken to the camp. I like the approach Benigni takes, towards portrayal of concentration camps. It is both serious, and comical. He tells his son that all of them are playing a game, and that the first prize is a tank... during this time, you don’t know whether to smile or feel sad. While the humour makes you smile, the harsh reality makes you think again.  

Braschi as Dora (looking out the window)

Benigni shines in acting. In the first half, he makes you laugh with his comic actions and dialogues. In the second part, he creates humour when he explains the things about the camp to his son, but at the same time, when you see how desperately he is trying to conceal the cruel happenings from Joshua, it also makes you sad. The scene where he supposedly translates the rules of the camp in Italian, the scene where Joshua tells ‘Thank you’ in Italian, by mistake, are few scenes where Benigni best displays his acting talent. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for this film. Nicoletta Braschi, who plays Dora, and Giorgio Cantarini, who plays Joshua have also done well.

Cantarini as Joshua

The score is superb, as are the costumes and sets. The ending is also moving. When you see people struggle in all types of hardship and finally taste happiness, you also empathise with them. Few climaxes have had that effect on me, like City Lights, The Shawshank Redemption and It’s a Wonderful Life. This film also enters that list. (Spoiler alert) When Joshua sees the military tank, he feels so thrilled, that he has ‘won the game’. But only the audience know that his father is actually dead. You are sort of in a dilemma, whether to feel happy for Joshua, or feel sad for him, for he is oblivious to his father’s death.

Overall, Roberto Benigni’s Life is Beautiful is a masterful piece of work. The acting is splendid; the second half of the story is brilliant. Of course, whether or not such incidents will really be possible is a doubt, but such things should be ignored. It is not a film about a very realistic portrayal of concentration camps, but rather, it is about how human spirit survives in the face of horror. Other than the fact that the first half is perhaps too elaborate, the film is almost flawless.

My Rating: 4.5/5
Rotten Tomatoes rating: 80%