finally...

Rating: 9/10 (10 February 1999)

This is the 4th performance of Benigni's that I've seen. In the other three I felt that either I was missing something (that was as plain as day to Italians), or that he just wasn't quite nailing "it." Well, this time I felt he did. With much respect to the critics of his treatment of the holocaust, he managed to convey its brutality to me, ie when the children and elderly were on their way to being "showered", the Germans shouting a bunch of harsh sounding and untranslated words, Jews being carried from their homes without a moment's notice... Those scenes sent chills up my spine. I really don't think anyone will ever take what happened lightly because of this film, (unless they were predisposed to taking it lightly before they saw it). Rather than make light of it, I felt he was showing how far his character had to go, and how inventive he had to be to protect his son mentally and physically from the horrors that surrounded both of them.