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Life is Beautiful, 1998.
Directed by Roberto Benigni. Roberto Benigni, Nicoletta Braschi.
A comedy about the Holocaust? Surely not. Didn't Jerry
Lewis try something like this once in a film that has long been held from
public view? Can such a thing actually work? Absolutely. That it comes
from Roberto Benigni, one of Lewis's more annoying accolytes, is completely unexpected.
In any event, this plays out against
the backdrop of fascist Italy and the Holocaust--take it or leave it--but
it never loses sight of the fact that it is, at its core, a celebration
of life and of hope even in the most desperate circumstances. We are introduced
to Guido, a happy-go-lucky clown of a man who uses his inate good humor
to guide him through life. In the first half of the film, we see him woo
the woman he loves and make a life for himself. It is nearly 45 minutes
into the film before we are told that he is also Jewish. In the second
half of the movie, we are moved ahead five years to the fifth birthday
of Guido's son. This is the day they come to take Guido and his son away
to a concentration camp. The humor in the movie remains, even in the heart
of darkness, but its tone changes dramatically as it takes on the form
of a desperate game for survival. Guido has to convince his son that it
is a game and must maintain the illusion in order to save his life.
This part of the movie is controversial--it is seen in
some quarters as making light of the Holocaust--but how can this movie
not maintain its humor in the concentration camp setting? To do otherwise
is to give up hope....it is who Guido is, it is his only weapon against
the darkness; to give up that weapon is to become a victim. There is also
the criticism that the concentration camp is not depicted realistically
enough, but this is a silly criticism. Life is Beautiful shows
us enough of a concentration camp to convince us, and, really, can a movie
truly capture the horror of the Holocaust down to its finest detail? The
very notion is obscene. To demand it is to declare the Holocaust off-limits
to art, which is absolutely disastrous. It is the idea of the Holocaust
that forms the backdrop here, and for Begnini's purpose, that is enough.
That said, there is one terrifying manifestation of the Holocaust here
that is more potent than the entire running time of Schindler's List,
in which Guido takes a wrong turn and is confronted by a ghostly 30 foot
high wall of emaciated corpses. This image is absolutely dead on perfect
for conveying the horror Guido contends against, and it is a testament
to star/director Begnini that he is able to overcome the strength of this
image and provide the audience with an uplift at the end of the film.
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