Unpretentious, simple and quite truly beautiful.

Rating: 9/10 (13 November 1999)

Before I start this comment, I must admit I was a bit dismayed at the negative feedback this movie has received. Many criticize it's lack of respect of history, others it's inane plot and others, the lack of action (=boring).
First off, this movie is all but boring. The first half of this film is a beautiful romantic comedy. I must admit however, not everyone has to like the hectic manners of Roberto Benigni. He is definitely, how can I put this, un-Hollywoodian, simple, unpretentious and captivating. His reaction at the Oscars was not a performance aimed to impress the world on how classy he was. He looked genuinely happy and it looked pure.
The romance that develops between Benigni's character and Dora (Braschi) is delightful. Benigni's comic talents are showcased here. People who find his comedy childish are all in their rights. However, I appreciate this humour much more than the crude and crassy jokes coming out of many mainstream Hollywood movies. Some may have forgotten how it was being a child, when some simple things were actually funny.
Now, on to the more sensitive half of the movie, the concentration camp. Here, Benigni's character makes his son Giosue, believe that he is playing a game to win a tank. This movie is not a recreation of the Holocaust and does not claim to be. It is not a Schindler's List were, honestly, the goal was to shock the viewers with the simple truth, same goes for Saving Private Ryan. I am not saying that the latter movies are bad, they are excellent movies, I am simply saying that their goals were not the same! They were meant to be methodical recreations of what really happened in those truly sad moments of human history. Life is Beautiful is really about the love of a man for his wife and his son. You must remember that the film is actually the tale of the young boy's (Giosue) memories, so it is very obvious that he may not have seen all the atrocities of the concentration camp. I felt that the movie in no way alleviates the seriousness of those events. Those who saw it as a simple parody of the Nazi occupation seem to have totally missed the point of the movie. Benigni is not laughing at the concentration camps but is trying to show how a loving father struggles to protect the simple mental health of his son by making him believe that he was playing a game. If Benigni didn't think seriously of the Holocaust, why would the whole second part of this movie revolve around how he can protect his son's mental health, what would there be to protect him from?
For people who look for cheesy predictable sticky endings to bad romantic love stories and those who think that movies without guns and slick leading gentlemen or sexy ladies are boring, this movie is not for you. However, for the people who are open minded enough to see past the fanatical political correctness of most mainstream films, they will find in "Life is Beautiful" a truly beautiful, simple yet stunning, unpretentious film, where the auteur tries to let the viewer into a world where the events of the Holocaust are given their rightful place, but where the first and foremost subject is love. Bravo.