An interesting movie about a complicated subject

Rating: 7/10 (20 November 1999)

I think I must be in the very small majority of people that neither loved nor hated this movie. In many ways it was skillfully made and well acted. However, the first half of the movie felt like a wacky romantic comedy with an Italian slant. The second half of the movie, however, is set in (of all places) a Nazi death camp. I happen to believe that if you're going to set a movie in the midst of one of the most terrible parts of history, you want to have something say and to do it very carefully. This movie fails in this, I feel. The message of the movie is very trite: "The human spirit can triumph over any adversity" might be a good summary. Rather than being uplifting, though, I found the implausible caperings of Guido and the credulity of his son to be ghoulish and disturbing in a way I doubt was intended by the filmmakers. I'm afraid I can't go along with the premise that the horror of Auschwitz could be covered up with some clever lies and a silly walk.
However, I must stress that the movie is artfully made and contains some memorable scenes. The mountain of corpses in the mist was almost as creepy as Guido's final conversation with his friend, the good Doktor Lessing.
La Vite e Bella is certainly worth a look; it is, however, neither profound nor historically valuable.