Life Is Beautiful (1998)

Beautiful!

This is a beautiful movie about the power of humor to bring hope and protect innocence in the face of unspeakable evil. Roberto Benigni's achievement is incredible: his performance is hilariously endearing, his screenplay brilliant, and his directing wonderfully atmospheric. Truly heartwarming. January 1, 2009

how to gain appreciation

Technically speaking, this movie share the same weaknesses of all the other Benigni's production: it's essentially a group of short gags assembled together more or less casually just to reach the proper length of a film.
As far as the content is concerned, most of the positive reviews run something like:
OK, don't seek historical accuracy in this film. This film is not about the holocaust primarily, it's purpose is not to document the holocaust. It is a film about family and the love of a father for his son. It is a film about how to survive in the most horrible conditions imaginable.
It seems to me they fail to grasp that this movie contains his own paradox. Out of a thousand way one can choose to stage "the love of a father for his son" Benigni picked up, not surprisingly, the holocaust, because he knew it was "the most horrible conditions imaginable", i.e. it's sooo touching and also the easiest way to get the audience on your side. On the other hand Benigni depicts a sort of watered, hilarious, Hogan heroes type of holocaust that is far from being "the most horrible conditions imaginable". Why? First because he is inherently a clown and that is the only way he knows to describe the facts of life, second because it would have been impossible to give the smallest bit of credibility to such a character amidst the horror of a real camp situation.
As a result, the film ends up giving no historical accuracy (actually is an insult to historical accuracy), and, much worse, sounding so fake also on the main characters side.
He simply was ready to take advantage of a real historical drama just as a background in order to give weight and gain support to a otherwise very inconsistent plot, script and mediocre acting.
December 22, 2008

This Movie is Beautiful

This is definitely in my Top Ten Movies of all time. It was beautiful, inspiring, heart-warming, poignant, heart-breaking, laugh-out-loud, and gut-wrenching. Every character in the small cast was great, but Roberto Benigni was absolutely amazing. I watched in on Thanksgiving and urge you to watch it on a similar occasion; it is an incredibly inspiring film that stayed with me long after it ended. December 20, 2008

Life is beautiful

Life is indeed beautiful and this wonderful movie by Roberto Begnini makes us stop to think about it, to admire it, to enjoy it, to love it, to come to the conclusion that, no matter how hard it is sometimes, it's always worth it! From my point of view, the core message of this masterpiece is the selfless love. Whenever we feel this kind of love, we will see that nothing else matters. We will have accomplished the highest goal a human being can be assigned to. That's also GOD's message for us and, amidst laughter, smiles, humor and tenderness, Roberto Begnini leads our thoughts to same conclusion. Watch it because you won't regret! November 16, 2008

You need a box of tissues for this one

This is on my top 5 list of favorite movies. I can watch it over and over again. Everyone should see this movie. October 27, 2008

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