Clever and Brave

Rating: Null/10 (27 February 2013)

Life is Beautiful (1997)
*** 1/2 (out of 4)
Oscar-winning mix of comedy and drama centers on Guido (Roberto Benigni), an Italian man who uses his style of humor to win a woman (INicoletta Braschi) he has fallen in love with at the start of WWII. They eventually have a son named Joshua (Giorgio Cantarini) and the three are eventually thrown in a concentration camp where the father uses that same humor to try and protect is son from the horrors of the Holocaust. LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL is a rather unique film because it should have been a complete disaster. I mean, how do you really add laughs to the horror of the Holocaust? Writer-director and Academy Award winner for Best Actor Benigni manages to do just that and it's pretty remarkable what he was able to pull off. The film really does play as two movies with the first half being a romantic comedy and then we're thrown into the drama aspect once we enter the camp and the father must try and protect his son. This is a very far-fetched premise and there's no question that a lot of it is unbelievable but at the same time the film is just so charming and unique that you can't help but fall for it. The majority of the credit has to go to Benigni who manages to pull off a Chaplin by mixing laughs with politics, romance and drama. I was really impressed with his performance and you can see why he won the Oscar. He's so incredibly good no matter what he's doing. This includes the slapstick early in the film, the romance in the middle and of course the toughest job of trying to protect his son. The way the film uses the "game" to try and protect the kid was quite clever and you can just feel the urgency in Benigni's performance. Both Braschi and Cantarini are also extremely good in their parts. The movie also gives us a very touching music score that perfectly captures everything we're being offered. I'm not going to ruin the ending but it's incredibly touching in the way it plays out. LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL isn't your typical romance and it's not your typical Holocaust picture, which pretty much means it's very original and quite daring but in the end it works.