Life Is Beautiful (PG) (This review on FilmJuice.com)
Life Is Beautiful, Roberto Benigni’s 1997 multi-Oscar winning triumph is a timeless modern fairytale. Set in 1930s Italy, Benigni plays the ingenious and good natured Guido. When the beautiful Dora (Nicoletta Braschi, Benigni’s wife) literally falls out of the sky and into his arms, Guido is instantly smitten. A series of gloriously fortunate events later the couple are married and have a son, and look likely to live happily ever after. However, after this uplifting opening the story takes a dark turn, as the Nazi’s whisk the young family off to a concentration camp. There Guido must use his vivid imagination to protect his wife and son from the surrounding horrors.
The first half of the film is crafted with such delightful creativity that the title seems beyond apt. Said title in fact originates from a quote by a holocaust survivor; a quote that helped to convince the filmmakers that it wasn’t inappropriate to make a comedy set during one of history’s darkest chapters.
Benigni’s slapstick combined with clever narrative contrivances make the opening hour fly by like a dream. The film’s tone then changes suddenly from a light and summery comedy, to a dark and harrowing recreation of the holocaust. This transition is jarring, perhaps deliberately so in order to contrast the graveness of the second half with the beauty of the first. With desperate heroism Guido maintains a ruse to his son that in fact they have gone to a holiday resort, where they must a play a game and win points. The implausibility of the story that seemed so appropriate earlier in the film, doesn’t quite work from this point onward. The filmmakers clearly realised this, because narration was added later to further explain that the story was intended as a fairytale.
All the contrivances, however brilliant, can’t help but add up to something of a predictable finale; a finale that highlights the one dimensionality of Guido as a character. But, the writing is such and the point of the story so obvious and noble, that these flaws can be overlooked.
The cast is uniformly fantastic, from Benigni’s heartwarming and Oscar winning central performance, to Giorgio Cantarini’s sublime debut as his little son. Interestingly, Cantarini went on to play the son of Maximus in Gladiator, likely giving him the finest filmography of any eight year old at the time! Nicoletta Braschi also shines as Guido’s devoted wife, playing her part perfectly in one of the most wonderfully touching romances ever seen on the silver screen.
The magic and warmth of Nicola Piovani’s unforgettable score makes it perhaps the most deserving of the film’s three Academy Awards, and the emotive cinematography by Tonino Delli Colli gives the film the feeling of a sumptuous classic.
Life Is Beautiful is an enchanting fable, and one of the most successful non-English language films to date. Uniquely poignant and full of joy, it firmly deserves its reputation as a must-see latter-day classic.
Blu-ray extras: Introduction by Martin Scorsese, Revisiting Life Is Beautiful - 15 years after featurette, Making of featurette, Trailer, B-roll.
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