"This is a simple story... but not an easy one to tell."

Rating: 9/10 (17 March 2007)

For the last 60 years, films regarding the Holocaust have had to tread carefully. It is truly a horrifying and disheartening period in Mankind's history, and, quite evidently, little humour could possibly be derived from it. Perhaps the last mainstream film to attempt such a thing was Charles Chaplin's classic 1940 satire, 'The Great Dictator,' which memorably spoofed Hitler and his Nazi regime, and poignantly highlighted the plight of the Jews. Indeed, Chaplin's film was released approximately a year before the true Nazi death camps, such as Auschwitz, were constructed, and Chaplin would later state in his 1964 autobiography, had he known the actual extent of the Holocaust's horrors, he could never have made such jokes about the Nazi regime.
It would take until 1997 that a film dared to try again. Popular Italian comedy entertainer Roberto Benigni co-wrote, directed and starred in 'La Vita è bella' (Life is Beautiful), a truly heartwarming wartime tale of love, family, courage and imagination. The film made an international star out of Benigni, with 'La Vita è bella' winning three 1999 Academy Awards (including Best Actor and Best Foreign Film), and nominated for a further four (including Best Picture and Best Director). Though I find it difficult to judge a performance in which an actor is not speaking English, there is no denying that Benigni does a terrific job as both actor and director. His surprise Best Actor Oscar win was only the second time a performance completely in Italian had been awarded (after Sophia Loren for "La Ciociara" (1960)).
The first half of the film contains not a hint of the war, and acts as the genuinely entertaining story of Guido Orefice's (Benigni) whimsical attempts to romance a beautiful Italian teacher named Dora (Nicoletta Braschi), whom he calls "Princess." Guido's exploits contain a large amount of innocent slapstick, evoking fond memories of Chaplin's antics sixty years earlier, and it is truly a pleasure to watch. We gaze in wonder as he continually meets his "Princess" in the most unexpected of places, whether she falls from the sky and into his arms, he arrives at her school pretending to be an Aryan inspector, or as he serves as a waiter at her engagement  to a loud and rude bank manager with a certain attraction to eggs.
After Guido "rescues" Dora from her unwanted marriage, riding her out of the engagement party atop of a green-painted steed named Robin Hood, we cut to five years later, and the two lovers are now married, with a bright and curious child named Giosué (written Joshua in the English subtitles), delightfully played by the young Giorgio Cantarini, in his screen debut. On the boy's birthday, Guido and Giosué are captured by the Nazis and herded onto a train to be transported to a concentration camp. Not being Jewish, Dora is spared such a fate, but she insists that she be taken also, unwilling to abandon her family.
In an effort to protect his young son from the horrors taking place around him, Guido cheerfully pretends that the entire concentration camp set-up is a huge game, with the ultimate prize going to the first team to score 1000 points  the ultimate prize being a real, fully-working tank. Young Giosué's imagination is captured by such a prospect, and he enthusiastically sets about winning 1st prize, his daily duties largely involving remaining hidden and silent on the top bunk of a set of beds. Meanwhile, Guido spends his days performing gritty slave labour, lugging hefty anvils considerable distances, all the while detailing to Giosué the phenomenal time he had playing hop-scotch and tug-of-war.
Whenever Giosué occasionally expresses his disbelief in the authenticity of his father's explanation, Guido is always able to sway him back. "How ridiculous. They were just teasing you!" exclaims he, when Giosué reveals what he had overhead from a sobbing old man. "There are wood ovens, but there are no people ovens. Putting people in ovens creates too much smoke!" The weary, disheartened Jews in the adjoining beds do their very best to perpetuate Guido's glorious façade. In one highly-amusing incident, to put his son's doubts at ease, Guido volunteers to translate a speech from one of the bad-tempered Nazis  the "rude men who yell"  despite not speaking a word of German, substituting the actual speech with the stern rules to his supposed game.
There's no doubt that 'La Vita è bella' shields the audience from most of the horrors of the Holocaust  no deaths are actually shown. Indeed, with the exception of one, no deaths are explicitly implied, with most of the murders lying deep in the subtext, only apparent due to our knowledge of history. The death of Jewish children should have been a heart wrenching moment in the film, but somehow Benigni manages to gloss over it. Giosué comes running to his father during the day, declaring that he refuses to take a shower as he has been told. We immediately recognise that the remainder of the children must now have been led to the gas chambers, but we do not dwell on it. The wider focus of the Holocaust is simply not what this film is about  it is about a loving father and his desire to protect his family with the most powerful weapon he possesses, his sense of humour and imagination.