Humour against fascism

Rating: Null/10 (19 February 1999)

The main skill that can be credited to "Life is Beautiful" is to be a film that believes that humour can win against authoritarianism. That is something most of intellectuals use to deny. As another Italian, a sociologist, Domenico De Masi, said once, "it is an awful thing that most of intellectuals tend to give importance only to sad and pessimistic analysis." In fact, it seems that people think that humour is not a serious thing. So most of us tend to repeat the same error as before with some artists like Toto or the Marx Brothers. It is about time to understand the political and aesthetical contribution of humour as to increase the best in our lives. In a certain sense, "Life is Beautiful" is near to another film, yet very different on approach and proposals, namely "Architecture of Destruction" the documentary about art in 3rd Reich. It is worth to see this film as a contribution to new approaches not only to the terrible fact of fascism but as well to the aesthetic reception to it.