Thursday 26th January 2012
Life is Beautiful
Roberto Benigni, Italy, 1997 [122 minutes]
Set in late 1930s Italy, a Jewish waiter, Guido (Roberto Benigni) uses cunning humour to win the heart of an Italian schoolteacher, Dora (Nicoletta Braschi) who’s set to marry another man. An idyllic family life with a 5 year old son is interrupted by the onset of war and the approach of the Nazis. Guido and his son are arrested and are about to be sent to a concentration camp when Dora demands to be taken too. In the camp, Guido hides his son from the Nazi guards, sneaks him food and tries to humour him. In an attempt to keep up Giosue’s spirits, Guido convinces him that the camp is just a game, in which the first person to get 1000 points wins a tank. The game becomes an eleaborate ruse to disguise the full horrors of the camp from the boy.
Italian actor-director Benigni’s 1998 multi-award winning film divided audiences and critics alike. For some this was a kitsch attempt to make a ‘feel good’ film about the holocaust while for others this was bold use of the ancient art of comedy as a means of better understanding one of the worst moments of the last century. You shall judge…
