amazingly entertaining

Rating: Null/10 (5 June 2000)

Life is Beautiful is truly an exceptional film. It takes a historical situation, the Holocaust, and puts its characters inside the walls of a concentration camp. This is about all that is true, and so it is historical fiction, but the plot is what is terrific. The first half is Roberto Benini doing a comedy routine and it is slapstick and often hilarious. The second half deals with the holocaust and a plot by which Benini must make up a game to tell his young son in order to shield him from the horrific truth. It is the rules of this game and ways that they are presented that make the movie so remarkable. nearly every important detail that appears in the second half was foreshadowed in the first. This movie is not only very enjoyable, but also extremely smart and creative.