Count Me Out

Rating: 6/10 (5 July 2018)

I am in the minority on this one, given the current 8.6 rating and its ranking at #26 all-time (!), but I have two major issues with "Life is Beautiful" that hold me back from joining others and proclaiming it a classic.
Plot in a nutshell: A cartoonish man in WWII Italy wins the heart of a local beauty (after much effort). Years later he is sent to a 'death camp' where he tries to shield his young son from the horrors that surely await them both.
Issue #1: Maybe it's just me, but isn't Roberto Benigni's character Guido highly annoying? Let's recap - early in the film, we see him - uninvited - creepily and unnecessarily sucking on the leg of a woman he doesn't know (to extract 'wasp poison' he says); he is constantly trying to steal another man's hat (because it's better than his, apparently); he steals the school inspector's ribbon and then impersonates him at the local elementary school, where (because he doesn't know what to say when he's asked to give a speech) he strips down to his underwear in front of the children....need I go on? To put it bluntly, Guido is NOT an endearing character, at all. He is a bit of a creep and a petty thief and he talks too much, with nothing near the charm of Chaplin's "Tramp," to whom he's been compared here by some. I don't get it. I was immediately turned off by his antics and never was able to warm up to him as the film wore on.
Issue #2: The scenes in the death camp can only be described as fantasy. In fact, the entire film should be labeled as fantasy, because what we are shown is so far removed from reality it can't be categorized as anything else. Maybe I would have embraced it more had I known this going in, but I did not. Example:
one of the early camp scenes, where Guido gets a hold of the camp loudspeaker and broadcasts a message to his wife, and somehow is not caught or punished for this? In reality he would have been shot ON THE SPOT and that would have been the end of this film. There are numerous similar instances of completely unrealistic and imaginary situations in the camp to move the plot along......yet we are supposed to become immersed in what is going on, knowing full well none of it could have possibly happened this way? Yeah I just can't do that.
Having said all of this, you CAN sense the connection father and son have, it's palpable, it's real. And you want to believe that the father would indeed try anything to save his family, up to and including sacrificing himself if he has to. The film does convey that quite effectively, and because of that, it has some merit. I just don't find it to be 'one of the greatest films ever' like many other people seemingly do. In essence it's a feel-good fantasy set in one of the worst imaginable nightmares of human history. In direct opposition to the feeling of this film, and a much more accurate representation of how the camps affected the people interned in them, I'll provide a quote from Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel's book "Night": "Here there are no fathers, no brothers, no friends. Everyone lives and dies for himself alone."
6/10. Light-hearted tale of survival set in a place where hope for most people had long since disappeared. Would I watch again? (Y/N): Probably not.