A kinder, gentler Holocaust, from your pal Roberto Benigni

Rating: 1/10 (24 July 2013)

I just saw this movie for the first time yesterday -- I had no idea what it was about in advance. I was very surprised to find that it was about the Holocaust. However, compared to what I have read, heard, seen, and learned about the Holocaust, this movie was very disturbing. The premise of this film was basically that "humor" (as defined and provided by Roberto Benigni) is sufficient protection against something as evil as the Holocaust.
No fu**ing way.
Benigni was raised a Catholic, and while some Italians (among others in German-controlled territory, such as Africans and Romani) were also forced into concentration camps, I have read of no public statements to the effect that Benigni has some sort of personal connection to the Holocaust (other than happening to be born, after the fact, in a country that was formerly an Axis power). Yet Benigni evidently feels qualified to present a film that put out a cinematic message something to the effect of: "Oh, oh, you poor victims of the Holocaust, if only more of you had been able to cling to the time-exalted crafts of HUMOR! and ACTING! as I would have, well, then perhaps more of you would have survived the war and its aftermath in much better shape! I weep for you and your lack of my wisdom! Did you not know? Life-a is-a Beautiful! I wish that I could have been with you back then in order to teach you this wonderful thing!" And what greater love could Benigni have for his (not really) fellow Holocaust victim than to (not really) die while never wavering from his beliefs in HUMOR and ACTING? How (not really) noble -- how (not really) Christlike.
And judging from the contemporary responses of Hollywood and its related businesses (such as film critics), such individuals and agencies were tripping over themselves to be complicit in this travesty. Why? Because the same shallow, self-entitled, lazy, bloodless, drug-addicted, Godless, perverted individuals who think that their "craft" deserves greater respect than the work of someone who gives more than he takes from this world, like, say, a farmer (by the way, Benigni's father farmed), know that as long as they applaud such tripe, they are validating their own useless lives and professions.
Benigni displayed about as much understanding about the Holocaust as a typical US white would display about the horrors of US enslavement of Africans and its ongoing aftermath.
More self-indulgent and self-validating nonsense for the practicers of "the craft", while simultaneously a willfully ignorant yet comforting tale of "the power of one" for the movie-goer.
A perfect Hollywood formula, from your bestest buddy and substitute Jesus, Roberto Benigni.