Life isn't so Beautiful

Rating: 2/10 (11 October 2009)

Benigni; an Italian actor, screenwriter, director, and (lets not forget) comedian, won an Academy Award for Best Actor, after portraying Guido – an Italian Jew who manages to conjure-up humorous stories at a concentration camp where his wife and son are captive. The only excuse for his behaviour is the need to cloud the truth from his son Joshua. Whether this reason is enough to mock the true horrors of the Holocaust is a debate of its own.
After moving to Arezzo, Guido intends to open a bookstore. Here, the director begins to implement Fascist undertones, such as the Fascist leader who refuses to give Guido a signature to allow him to open his own bookstore. Guido then realises that Dora, who later becomes his wife, is the head Fascists fiancée.
For a while, 'Life' does actually seem 'Beautiful', and Benigni's comedy is plausible. The film hints very little anti-Semitic references in the beginning, until Hitler's army evict Guido and his son, Joshua, from their home and guide them to a concentration camp. After Dora manages to track them down, she is voluntarily allowed to join the captives.
Guido and his son, along with the other male captives, are sectioned off from the women. Guido reassures Joshua that this is his birthday surprise, and that it is a test of endurance which, in exchange for points will result in a 'prize', a life-size tank.
There is an awkward resemblance between him and the infamous Chaplin who was widely famous for portraying Hitler in a comedic fashion (most memorably 'The Great Dictator'). The difference however is that Guido's character, unlike Chaplin, was created long after the war, and at a time when the Holocaust was distant from becoming history, Chaplin's humour was taken at face value. Chaplin was later to apologise to the US for his portrayal of such
a serious event, and admittedly acknowledged that if he knew the true atrocities of the war, he would have reconsidered his approach.
Benigni's film however was released in 1997, a very sensitive and historical era. Many of the films that depicted the Holocaust during the 90's have proposed a serious effort to recreate the realism and stigma that revolved the captivation and mass murder of innocent Jews. Most memorably, Spielberg's seven-time academy award-winning 'Schindler's List' (1994) depicts a tremendously reckless vision of horror and the innocent murder of men, women and children. I cannot imagine to compare both films with the same frame of mind, which begs the question, should all films revolving the Holocaust be seen in the same way? Take a modern event, the 9/11 disaster, could you see such an event become apart of a comedy hybrid? It begs the question as to whether it is ethical for a comedian to direct and act in a film which is expected to have serious undertones.
Benigni had been approached on many occasions over this issue. He claimed that he was not making a comedy of the Holocaust, but instead a comic who lived through the Holocaust. If you take the comedy out of this film, you are left with a very pathetic approach to the true events inflicted by Hitler's army. There is a lack of reality, for example, all the captives seem clean shaven, the boy is miraculously able to hide for days inside the cabin without getting caught, and there is little emphasis on death. Shockingly, Guido is able to hijack a booth where he makes 'loving' and reassuring announcements to his wife Dora over a microphone, and is not left severely punished, or worse, shot! In the beginning, Guido even pretends to know German, and offers to translate the Nazi's instructions to the camp, whilst all along reassuring Joshua that it is a game, depriving the others of important information for their survival.
Such events are highly unrealistic, and any of these attempts would be treated without tolerance. Romance, comedy, and a hazardous attitude are probably the last things on a Jewish captives mind at the Holocaust. Furthermore, it is worrying when spectators laugh at Benigni's material, as it is definitely far from a laughing matter.
It's even more unrealistic when Guido dies from a gunshot (off camera of course), after getting caught trying to find his wife Dora. He instructs Joshua to stay in a sweatbox until he hears and sees no one. Soon the camp is dry, and the Nazi's are driven out by the American force, and Joshua is approached by a friendly American in a life-size tank. The boy rides the tank, and is soon reunited with his mother.
In Benigni's world of fiction, life truly seems 'beautiful', but it doesn't take much research to unveil the true horrors that came with the Nazi war effort.
I give this film 1 out of 5 for its unreal, thoughtless and inconsiderate approach.
Article By Screen Reverend @ www.screenreverend.co.cc