One of the best film ever on the holocaust

Rating: 7/10 (11 May 2000)

(Spoilers Ahead)
Though Schindler's List is the best film on the horror that was the holocaust, Life Is Beautiful (La Vita e Bella in Italian) is way up there. And I enjoyed it. Especially because the film doesn't completely circle around the concentration camp, just half of it. Half of the film surrounds Guido Orefice (Roberto Benigni won a well deserved best actor Oscar as Guido, along with a second Oscar for best Foreign film as director and writer) as a Italian-Jewish waiter who is in love with a "princess". This half has more of the comedy than drama, but the second half is melodramatic as Guido has a son now with his princess and they are taken to a concentration camp. But so to shield his son from the horrors, he makes a game the two can play as their ordeal unfolds. Very original, and very well done, with Benigni acting now aa a Italian version of Charlie Chaplin. Excellent all around. A+