Makes You Laugh and Cry

Rating: 9/10 (29 March 2004)

There have been numerous films about the Holocaust: A few of them were mediocre, many of them good, and a few were real masterpieces (with "Schindler's List" topping the latter league). However, in my humble opinion, "La Vita e Bella" deserves special praise because it is truly unique in its approach of this great historical tragedy: More specifically, the movie manages artfully to make you occasionally laugh loudly, while on the same time it keeps this grave horror in its proper perspective, and therefore makes you cry; especially in the end, it makes you cry fiercely.
The actors' performances are great, with Roberto Benigni being simply superb in his role of the straggling father, who despite his agony and suffering, cleverly manages to portray the concentration camp as a game to his son, in order to protect him from realizing the terror he is in.
Although some things are a bit oversimplified (e.g., the camp is depicted as place where the main problem is not the death but the hard work, without showing pictures of harassed and degraded inmates), this approach is followed in order to keep the balance explained in the beginning of this critique: "La Vita e Bella" tries to tell us a very serious story, yet it also tries to remind us that we have to keep our mood always positive, no matter the circumstances, and then we might have a chance to get away with it. Little Joshua can tell you more about how to do it... A 9/10 film.