Touching, beautiful.

Rating: Null/10 (5 June 2002)

This little anecdote well describes the film.
I hate crying. I never cry on principle. I wouldn't cry if my old neighbour was run over while crossing the road or my boss had a heart attack. If my next door shop ran out of my favourite sweets, or if Clinton declared World War III, I wouldn't cry.
But I was in tears after watching Life is Beautiful. The only thing I could think of was how stupid I would look when the lights would be on. But when the lights went on, I saw a panorama of white tissues wiping off the tears of the desperate spectators. We were all crying like babies. Kids, daddies and grannies, they all seemed about to commit suicide.
Life is Beautiful is a universal movie, able to move anybody's heart. And this is because it's a love-story between a father and his child, it's an emotional journey through the atrocities of the Holocaust, it's a ray of joy and hope that fights against human wickedness.
The plot is basic: an Italian-Jewish family is deported to a labour camp during World War II. Here, all sorts of atrocities happen. The extraordinary thing about the film, that makes it different from Schindler's List, for instance, is that these atrocities never really affect the child. His father, played by director and Oscar winner Roberto Benigni, tries in every way to prevent his son from realizing the truth. He in fact tells him that the camp is like a big playground and that they both have to work hard to get points in order to win a big tank. The child, so deluded, can somehow bear the painful situation.
The film is not a description of the Holocaust. Rather, it's the experience of the Holocaust seen through the eyes of a child who thinks it's all a game. The movie is not disrespectful towards Jews or the Holocaust, it is, on the contrary, all pervaded with sentiment and compassion. It's the tragedy of two human beings that are dying and still manage to keep their hopes and dreams alive.
Life is Beautiful is a film that makes you cry as well as makes you smile. And laugh. The energy of the two protagonists coincides with their capacity to fight, to see a reason to live, a reason to laugh, to have a moment of carefree joy, despite the labour, despite the menace of death, despite the inevitability.
Three Oscars won for Best Foreign Film, Best Actor and Best Original Score. Best film of the year and the best film I have seen in my life.