You can see why it was a success, but it wasn't that good...

Rating: 5/10 (22 June 2006)

As I said, this film can easily pass as one of the most emotional and thought-provoking stories in modern cinema. Its big success worldwide, mostly in the U.S., spells out the mainstream ingredients for a successful film. It is quite simple really how this clown-like parody of WWII got to earn so much money: relationships between people, and relying upon one another.. These two sentences may sound simple and over-profound, even too usual and melodramatic for some tastes, but believe me, they are the everlasting secrets of how to make a movie sell. Movies that have to do with companionship, love, friendship, helping one another, make money.
Movies that have to do with loners, death, and the impossibility of love, do not make money.
Think about a rather recent example. Why do you think the academy and the audiences preferred the even "Million Dollar Baby" to the spectacular "Aviator"? Simple. "Million Dollar Baby" was about friendship, love, companionship and sacrifice. The "Aviator" was about a recluse, the lonely life of a psychotic millionaire, a film about ONE person.
If you really think about it, the most successful films of all time are the kind of soapy melodramas whose superficial sentimentality hypnotizes the minds of the mainstream viewer. It's not about action and happy endings, a rather falsely perceived Hollywood notion about a successful film, but rather a movie that deals with bonding and friendship. Would "Lord of the Rings" have made so much money if it hadn't been about the FELLOWSHIP of people/creatures?? Not really. It's almost impossible to imagine how a film that is not about bonding can be successful. The retention of the illusion of film can only be achieved if the viewer can idolize the sacred value of love. Be it amorous or otherwise. And this is it. This is why movies like "Shawshank Redemtion" and "Titanic" will always sell more than "8 1/2" and "Andrei Roublev". They are more collectivist whereas the other two are more individualist. Once such notions as family, love and friendship are celebrated on screen, the viewer seems to like it better. And it is obvious, isn't it?? No matter how good a film is (meaning the story, the acting, the direction, the music) it will always sell if it focuses on the triumph of human bonding.
In this case, "La Vita e Bella" was successful because of that. It was a film about the love and sacrifice of a father for his son. Period. That's all one has to hear to like this film. Its extremely bad aspects are immediately ignored. No one seems to care that this film was an insult to those who suffered during WWII. No one notices how unrealistic Begnini's portrayal of the clown was, how much of an immature parody of human emotions and historical truths the film was. Behind the silly laughter and the pretentious theme lies a true mockery of WWII, and nobody seems to care about it..