LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL (LA VITA È BELLA). 1997. WRITTEN BY ROBERTO BENIGNI AND VINCENCO CERAMI. DIRECTED BY ROBERTO BENIGNI. STARRING ROBERTO BENIGNI, NICOLETTA BRASCHI, GIORGIO CANTARINI AND HORST BUCHOLZ. MUSIC BY NICOLA PIOVANI. FEATURING MUSIC BY JACQUES OFFENBACH. REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©
This multi-award-winning Italian movie set in World War Two tells the story of Guido Orefice. Guido is a Jewish-Italian bookshop owner played by the writer and director of the film, the curly-haired, smiley Roberto Benigni. Guido is one of life's eternal optimists. He's always smiling, always in a good mood and always makes the best of every situation in which he finds himself. People like that can be intensely irritating, can't they? Sometimes, you just want to punch 'em, don't you? Don't I know it, haha.
Anyway, Guido has both Reasons To Be Cheerful (Ian Dury, for all you pop-pickers out there...!) and Reasons To Be Fearful, if you'll permit a little light rhyming. He's hopelessly in love with his wife Dora, whom he wooed with all the eccentric intensity of a whirlwind on acid, and his gorgeous little blonde-haired son Giosuè is the light of his life. It's obvious that Guido loves his little family to the ends of the earth and back.
The Orefice family live in dangerous times, however. Guido, his little boy and his elderly Uncle Eliseo are one day hauled off to a concentration camp because they're Jewish, while a desperate Dora begs permission of a German officer to board the same train as her family. Thus, all four of them end up at the camp, where poor old Eliseo is immediately gassed because of his age and Dora is segregated from them and sent to the womens' section.
The whole point of the film becomes abundantly clear the minute Guido and Giosuè queue to board the train of death. Guido shields his son from the horrors of the journey and the camp itself by pretending that the whole thing is a game and the ultimate prize for the holder of a thousand points is a tank, an idea while appeals enormously to the child.
In this way, and also by hiding the child in their cabin so that he's not gassed along with the other children, Guido manages to keep the awfulness of their situation from his beloved son. Luckily for him, circumstances mostly conspire to support his white lie and keep the child believing that they're all just playing a game. But will Guido's luck hold out till the war is over and the camps are liberated by the Americans? There's many a slip 'twixt cup and lip, as the old saying goes.
Roberto Benigni acts his socks off as the father who would literally give his life for his family. That's not a spoiler now, by the way! In fact, he won the Oscar for Best Actor for his performance and the film itself won two more golden statuettes for Best Original Dramatic Score and Best Foreign Language film. That's quite a haul for any film, whatever way you look at it!
Guido's a born clown, in the sense that he brings philosophical humour to the grimmest of situations. Giorgio Cantarini as Giosuè is a great little actor for his tender years. And he's so cute, too, that one can only imagine the number of times his little cheeks have been pinched by adoring ladies over the years!
Some of Guido's tricks and cunning plans are not altogether believable. As if he'd really have been able to communicate with Dora via an unattended loudspeaker! Or deliberately misinterpret a German officer's commands to an entire roomful of prisoners entirely for the benefit of little Giosuè. Still, the viewer has to suspend disbelief (or is it 'suspend belief?' Both seem perfectly appropriate!) in order to fully appreciate the lengths to which Guido goes to protect his son.
To me, the most powerful scene is the one in which the hopes Guido has placed in a confused and befuddled Dr. Lessing, played by Horst Bucholz, are found to be sadly misplaced. What Guido sees in the mist and fog and dark, as well, is a sight never to be forgotten. Despite the grim setting, though, the film is almost a fairytale. It's a story about the power of love and the triumph of the human spirit over the most untenable of circumstances. Watch it. I promise you you'll love it.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based performance poet, novelist, film blogger, sex blogger and short story writer. She has given more than 200 performances of her comedy sex-and-relationship poems in different venues around Dublin, including The Irish Writers' Centre, The International Bar, Toners' Pub (Ireland's Most Literary Pub), the Ha'penny Inn, Le Dernier Paradis at the Trinity Inn and The Strokestown Poetry Festival.
Her articles, short stories and poems have appeared in The Metro-Herald newspaper, Ireland's Big Issues magazine, The Irish Daily Star, The Irish Daily Sun and The Boyne Berries literary journal. In August 2014, she won the ONE LOVELY BLOG award for her (lovely!) horror film review blog. She is addicted to buying books and has been known to bring home rain-washed tomes she finds on the street and give them a home. In 2003, she was invited to be a guest on Niall Boylan's 98FM late-night radio talk show purely on the basis of having a 'sexy voice.'
She is the proud possessor of a pair of unfeasibly large bosoms. They have given her- and the people around her- infinite pleasure over the years. She adores the horror genre in all its forms and will swap you anything you like for Hammer Horror or JAWS memorabilia. She would also be a great person to chat to about the differences between the Director's Cut and the Theatrical Cut of The Wicker Man. You can contact her at:
http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com
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