Life Is Beautiful (La Vita E Bella) (1997)

Rating: 2/10 (16 January 2011)

Life Is Beautiful (La Vita E Bella) (1997) Released 13 years ago, but I only saw it now for the first time. I hate to say it, but... what a waste of time.
I lost interest about 20 minutes into the movie, then fast-forward the rest. I don't get the point of the movie. It doesn't work as a comedy: first of all because Benigni is just annoying (yeah, I used to love some of his movies once too. Now I find it annoying) and secondly because we get the point of "presenting the holocaust to your son as a game" and there's no need to drag it for another hour. However, the movie doesn't work as a drama/educational either: It just doesn't seem to take any of the situations seriously and it doesn't show the horrors of the holocaust. In particular, I don't get the entire first half of the movie - it doesn't have to do with the rest of the movie at all.
I didn't really find the movie offensive, just... a waste of a filmmaker's time and effort. It's funny that Benigni chose the prison camp uniform to have the same number as Charles Chaplin's uniform in "The Great Dictator (1940)", as I wanted to give Chaplin's "The Great Dictator (1940)" as the example of how to make a masterpiece, dealing with the same subject - while making a comedy. Yeah, it's not easy to make a comedy about the holocaust, especially if you want to make a point and have some serious under-layers. In comparison to "The Great Dictator", I would say that "Life Is Beautiful" is quite offensive - making fun of the situation instead of letting the viewer feel the horror and seriousness of it.
Let me give you a simple example from "The Great Dictator" to make my point:

"How many were going to strike?" - "Three thousand of them." - "Have them all shot. I don't want dissatisfied workers."

This is one of my favorite bits. It's so funny, yet Chaplin didn't put it just for the joke - he put it there to show how cruel the Dictator is and REALLY teach about the situation and conditions. Benigni does just the opposite: He makes stuff up just for the sake of being funny - I couldn't find any value in his jokes or in the script in general.
To sum it all up, Chaplin entertains the viewers while at the same time letting them feel and understand the horror. Benigni completely detaches the viewers from the situation and his entire purpose is to make them laugh. Comparing Benigni to Chaplin is like comparison DreamWorks to Pixar.
I honestly don't understand how this movie got so many praises.
2/10 Horrible. Go watch "The Great Dictator" to learn how to handle this subject.