Photo Credit: Sergio Stirizzi |
La Vita è Bella
Showing at Upstate Films
Much has already been written about Roberto Benigni's Life is Beautiful. Although it won the Cannes Grand Jury Prize as well as the Jerusalem Film Festival Award, the movie has taken a lot of critical flack in this country for its non-standard approach to the Holocaust. Kind of a Chaplin goes to Auschwitz. After the hagiography following Spielberg's Schindler's List, it's not surprising that Benigni's film has been generally excoriated in the American press. He doesn't take the right tack, critics seem to be saying; he's not reverent enough; there's no room for comedy in a depiction of the Holocaust; there's no room for a depiction of the triumph of the human spirit in a Holocaust movie. |
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If you can get beyond that and not be hung up like the critics, "Life is Beautiful" might surprise you. Despite starring in a series of awful movies - "Son of the Pink Panther," "Johnny Stecchino," "The Monster" - Begnini's artful clowning always brought a quality to even his worst films that was tough to ignore and is certainly one of the most gifted comedians in contemporary cinema. Begnini both wrote and directed "Life is Beautiful" as well as starring as the charming joker husband/father, and I think he knew he was on risky ground here, portraying life inside a concentration camp as an elaborate game to his son and providing many poignant comic moments along the way. To his great credit, Begnini does not diminish the suffering of the millions who perished in the camps; he has managed to find tenderness and humor alongside degradation. Begnini hasn't rewritten the Holocaust, he has just added another chapter to a tale sorely lacking in levity. |
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