Roberto Benigni is a GENIUS

Rating: 10/10 (12 July 2005)

"Life is Beautiful" is more than a masterpiece. It is possibly THE most incredibly wonderful movie that exists. Guido Orefice (Roberto Benigni) is a Jewish waiter in 1930s Italy. He has managed to hide his ethnic background, although he is fully aware of the anti-Semitism around him (one man has sons named Adolf and Benito). To counter Mussolini's nationalism, he goes to a school to "prove" that the Italians are a superior race: he shows off his bellybutton. After some flings with "principesa" Dora (Nicoletta Braschi), the two of them get married and have a son named Giosue (called Joshua in the subtitles).
A few years later, the Nazis are rounding up all the Jews in town, including Guido and Giosue (Dora demands to be taken also). But Guido has the most imaginative plan: he tells Giosue that they are playing a game. In what may be the movie's most surprising scene, they enter a barracks where everyone is wearing those suits that we've seen in footage of concentration camps, and Guido "translates" for the Nazi guard: he announces how they are participating in this game to see who can get the most points, and you lose points for being a crybaby, asking to see your mommy, or asking for food. You are quite literally assuming that he can't pull it off, but he does masterfully.
Throughout the whole movie, you keep expecting that he's eventually going to go over the edge, but he never does. "Life is Beautiful" is more than beautiful. Benigni's Oscars for Best Actor and Best Foreign Language Film were probably the most well-deserved Oscars in recent years. If you ask me, the movie should have won Best Picture, and every other possible Oscar. It is a work of pure genius.