A beautiful yet chilling film

Rating: 9/10 (12 January 1999)

The story of a man (Guido) who moves to a small Italian town to work for his uncle. Along the way he meets a beautiful "principessa" who falls from the sky. He runs into his princess again in the town - he later finds that she works in the local school. He naturally falls for her and invents ways of surprising her - sometimes contrived and simple but funny and romantic nevertheless.
He steals her away from her fiance, opens the bookshop he dreamed of and everything seems fine... until 3 months before the end of the 2nd world war - did I mention he was Jewish???
He and his son are taken to a prison camp and that's where the movie changes style. Guido is now fighting to keep his son alive. He invents a game for his son that will keep him away from the horrors of the war.
Although the horrors were not made obvious by Benigni (why would he when you and I know what happened in WWII) we could see the desperation in Guido to hide the reality from his son so he may survive. I get chills just thinking about it as I write. Subtle in its horror but effective as a tragi-comedy.
For those who do not understand Italian there is a point near the end of the film where a "riddle" is asked of Guido which I believe was meant as a hint to stay off the trucks.