Imaginative Nonsense

Rating: 3/10 (25 September 2002)

Roberto plays a very, very nice guy. He speaks lots of supposed-to-be-funny lines, unfortunately he's the only who laughs. Roberto marries a very, very nice girl whom he adores like a princess, then they have a very, very nice boy. This Jewish family is perfect.
The tearjerker formula is to throw the happy family from heaven to hell, so they're sent to Nazi's concentration camp naturally. The very nice daddy lies to his very nice son that this is only a contest game. Upon seeing those miserable prisoners wearing dirty clothes, this bright boy is still idiotic enough to believe daddy's words. The actor-director's trick is that no one in the background is allowed to say a word except himself, so the boy wouldn't hear any complaint from those poor Jewish.
Everyday Roberto and other prisoners are sent to work, he simply hides the kid in their bedroom where there's no food, water, or toilet. I suppose there's no need to explain how the kid can survive to the viewer either.
Though the depiction of concentration camp, built purely from Roberto's mind, is quite laughable, he claimed the movie is a fantasy about "power of imagination." Ironically, it ends with a voice-over saying, "This is my true story."
The simple-minded movie is covered up by its beautiful score and fools millions of audiences, including members of Academy Award who use to think a foreign language film is definitely a great film.