The secret of a beautiful life: "Be Italian!"

Rating: 10/10 (7 September 2010)

In what nationality other than Italian could a man have gotten away with naming his film Life Is Beautiful (La Vita È Bella), for surely it must be the most beautiful language of all, so much so that to watch this film without subtitles would still be an event. The flow of the dialog is so unnaturally rhythmic for a foreign film; the barrier that is usually developed between viewer and the unknown performers' language is instantly shattered. What's just as significant about Beautiful is its status as a risk taking combined-genre film.
Director, co-writer and star of Life Is Beautiful Roberto Benigni, however, is of a daring variety, to the extent that he is unsatisfied with the restrained convention of mix-and-match films and so instead has stumbled upon his own creation, in which he incorporates the entire spectrum of human emotion into one production, with themes ranging from slapstick to genocide, romantic comedy to holocaust/war drama and from the beauty of life to the tragedy of death. What's even more amazing than the theory of this magnitude of variations is his ability to pull it off!
To say that the first half of this film, which revolves around lovable goof Guido's (Benigni) attempts to court the beautiful Dora (Benigni's wife Nicoletta), is often carefree is not to suggest that it is careless. True, this section is cheery and light-hearted, but never resorts to cheap sentiment or unjustified romance. On the contrary, the many set-ups and pay-offs that Guido uses to not-too-subtly, yet adoringly pursue Dora are some of the cleverest that one could conceive, ranging from creating an umbrella out of a steering wheel and a pillow to magically producing the "key" to Dora's emotions.
When much more of this banter has taken place to the point that Dora is on the verge of loving Guido, he suddenly takes a different, more seriously approach. He tells Dora that he dreams of making love to her and could happily live the remainder of his life doing it. Now traditionally, if a man tells a woman that he hardly knows of his fantasises for such things, he's probably either drunk or tragically misguided in the ways of seduction. But it is the quiet innocence and gentle honesty with which Guido expresses his desire that detracts from any illicitness or sinister motives that might otherwise be present. He says "make love" with such naïve charm that its phrasing has no meaning pertaining to sex and to imagine this man having sex is just impossible. To him, making love may just be a nice hug.
Eventually, while Guido is waiting on patrons at the rehearsal dinner for Dora's pending marriage they meet surreptitiously under a large dining table. Nicola Piovani's award-winning score is at its must potent here, discarding the booming consistency of a string orchestra, leaving just a single harp, strumming and plucking to the absolute sincerity of the scene. Dora crawls slowly and somehow gracefully to Guido and they share their first kiss. "Take me away," she whispers. This is the second most beautiful scene in the film.
Five years later, Guido and Dora have a beautiful son, Giosué (Cantarini), and eventually, Guido and his family are relocated (on Giosué's birthday!) to a concentration camp. While sceptical, Giosué allows himself to be told by his loving dad that the camp is a game and the prize, if the rules are followed, is his very own tank. When Guido is selected by a German officer to translate the regulations of the camp into Italian for the rest of the captives, he seizes the opportunity to convince his son that what he says is the truth in the film's funniest scene. As the officer shouts orders and motions violently, Guido shouts in turn a succession of hilarious rules and conditions of playing the game that can be found below, including the loser each day having to wear a sign that says "Jackass"! Giosué is happily persuaded.
To learn in the second half of Beautiful that Benigni as an actor as well as a writer is no fool is very rewarding. The utter seriousness and desperation he conveys when he speaks with one of the camp's doctors (an earlier acquaintance made in Arezzo) who he hopes will help his family escape is a refreshingly versatile scene, as is the one immediately succeeding it where Guido is carrying his sleeping son back to their quarters in a heavy night-time fog. He takes a wrong turn and stumbles upon what is at first a pile of vague figures. As he approaches, the light reveals the large heap of slaughtered Jews that lay before him, still somewhat obscured by the mist. Watch Guido's shattered yet restrained expression, his wide and silent eyes, as he steps slowly away from the massacre.
That said, Benigni's sentimental disposition that steers the film is always a welcome motivator, as in the scene when Guido attempts to make contact with the separately incarcerated Dora: after slipping away from the patrols, he and Giosué approach an unmanned P.A. system used for barking demands at the prisoners. Guido switches it on and an uncharacteristically colourful shot of the camp's megaphone is shown as he bellows into the microphone to his lonely wife, "Buongiorno, Principessa!" This is the most beautiful scene in the entire film; if it doesn't bring you to tears, then nothing ever will!
The quintessential feel-good movie about the horrors of World War II, Life Is Beautiful is an ingenious masterpiece that follows one of the greatest inspirational philosophies in cinema: if there is but one thing that can be taken, felt or experienced totally and sincerely in film or any form of art, why should it be misery? Why should it be terror? Why oh why should it be hate?
No For man's sake, for life's sake, and for love's sake, let it be love, and the beauty it holds.