One sure route to the shrink

Rating: 1/10 (3 December 1998)

La vita è bella sucks. The first half of the movie is mildly interesting and sometimes even funny, but from the moment daddy Guido and son Ferrucio are heading for the concentration camp, director Begnini's hideous master plan takes over. Guido explains to his son that an unforeseen and rather unpleasant truck ride is part of the kid's birthday present. Once they enter the concentration camp, Guido has a lot more of explaining to do. The reason they are here, he tells the bewildered kid, is that a huge game is going on. There are many different ways to score points, and the first contender to reach a thousand points will win the first prize, consisting of a real tank! In order to avoid a one way trip to the gas chamber, Guido orders his son to hide in his bed all day. Now that is real fun! Day after day the kid is running or hiding. All part of the game. Sometimes his father's romantic nature takes over. For instance, he makes an old gramophone blast his favorite love song all over the place, so that his wife in one of the other barracks will know that Guido is still alive and very much in love with her. Happily, at that moment there is obviously not a single German soldier in the camp to shoot this loving soul right through the head. Apart from the whole story being silly and incredible, one may wonder if on the long run it is a wise idea to frame a series of very unpleasant experiences in a kid's life as a game. If he gets out alive - and of course he does - how will he feel later when he discovers that he has witnessed one of the biggest crimes off all time, believing it was all just a game? The answer is: he will feel guilty as hell and, to make things worse, he will think of himself as a particularly stupid and trusting person. If I was a psychiatrist, I would try very hard to have this guy for a client. But Benigni is such a romantic and caring person, that he doesn't seem to realize that sometimes thinking can be a great asset.