Lack of vision by these reviewers

Rating: Null/10 (4 December 1998)

This film had to be one of the most moving I have seen since Her Majesty, Mrs. Brown. While singing the praises of this movie, I feel I must rebutt some of the previous comments. After 50 years, there is a widely held cultural context for the horrors of the Holocaust and the concentration camps, and I feel that Benigni is drawing on that in this film. Do we really need to see the horrors and obscenity of the concentration camps again to know that they are there? I think that bombarding the audience with horrific images can be a numbing experience, while subtle imagery (the cat searching for it's owner in the pile of clothing, the elderly and children undressing under the cold, steely gaze of the female guard, etc.) are enough to convey the complete inhumanity present. If you really needed a little gore to convince you things were bad, there was the 2 story surreal pile of bodies emerging from the mist. Lack of gore should not be seen as a lack of condemnation of the horrors of the Holocaust, and its lack of such sets it apart from other films dealing with the same subject matter.