Think again

Rating: 4/10 (3 July 2000)

(SPOILERS ahead!)
"It's not supposed to be realistic! We already know how horrible the Holocaust was."
The above is a direct quote from another user comment. I beg to differ (what, so now we're going to show how hilarious and heartwarming it is?). No movie, or the sum of every documentary, reel of footage, essay, book, novel, etc. could possibly convey the horror of the Holocaust.
The first half was moderately amusing, but I was moved neither to laughter or tears by any moment (and in retrospect the first half seems to have been calculated to engender goodwill for the second) in the film. I wanted to be affected by it, and fully expected to appreciate it, in no small part because it came highly recommended to me by a very good friend whose taste usually coincides with mine. But I cannot chalk this film up as a mere disappointment.
The dramatist who attempts to muck around with the details of the Holocaust fights a particularly uphill battle, given how acquainted we are with it and its magnitude both in numbers and scope. That said, I have no qualms with dramatic license, provided that it is employed consciously and conscientiously. But "Life Is Beautiful" is not only unsuccessful but willfully negligent in these respects. (For starters, during WWII Italian Jews remained in Italy...)
Factual errors could be ignored had the film been set in a more surreal or fanciful context, but it isn't; details are handled in a slipshod fashion when they're handled at all. And so I couldn't ignore my incredulity at the 'hiding' of the child, that not a single inmate spoke German, etc. ad nauseam.
Many times have I heard the protest "I could never watch 'Schindler's List', I couldn't bear it." And I respect that. But in the next breath, the same person will often be heard singing the praises of this movie, and that to me is disturbing. The portrayal of the camp conditions alone amounts to a sugarcoating of the Holocaust, making it easier for the viewer to watch; perhaps it SHOULD be difficult, don't you think?
But not in Benigni's version- his character even dies off-screen. By pulling its punches, the film is neither as sad nor as funny as it wants to be.
The 'hope' offered up in "Life Is Beautiful" is really just of the standard Hollywood variety, will and imagination triumphing despite the most dire of circumstances. I don't have a problem with such sentiment, I just want a movie to *earn* it, and like so many popcorn pictures, "Life Is Beautiful" doesn't succeed, despite its unlikely setting. My suspicion is that if the film had originated in Tinseltown, critics would not have been so kind and audiences not nearly so enraptured. You gotta hand it to Benigni, the conceit of the movie is a great ploy and he's got some chutzpah for even attempting it.
Could redemption be found in the midst of such atrocities and suffering? I believe so, but the kind suggested in "Life Is Beautiful" is false and fleeting, evaporating as soon as the kid stops fawning over the tank and wonders "Where's dad?" (Some have proposed that this makes the film an absurdist masterpiece, but any irony is far from intended- hence the bland, affirming title, the smiling faces on the posters, and the sunny first half.) A father's sacrificial love makes for a more-than-worthy premise for a film, but it is taken to shallow lengths here.
Perhaps this wouldn't be so damaging if Benigni had not decided to co-opt for his movie what is arguably the most despicable and well-documented event in human history. The examination and implications of an event like the Holocaust should never cease, but I don't hold out much hope for our ability to avoid more like it, not if "Life Is Beautiful" and the overall reaction to it is indicative of our ability to prevent such monstrosities just by force of historical memory. How quickly we forget.
(There were two things about the movie I liked: the transition in the greenhouse, and the relationship between Guido and his hoped-for, riddling savior.)
I am impressed by Mr. Benigni's irrepressible optimism- impressed and annoyed, frankly -but he can't get by on charm this time.