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Sound startling? It's meant to. Italian film star Roberto Benigni's life-affirming comedy/drama is a wonderful confluence of mixed emotions, an audacious, heartbreaking essay in shocking contradictions. Yet La Vita è bella (in Italian, with English subtitles) is anything but disrespectful. This ingenious, uplifting story of how an Italian waiter shields his son from the most unthinkable horrors of concentration camp internment is a breakthrough piece of motion picture artistry, a profound fable about a time in history that would deny folks their fairy tales.
Loveable Guido Orefice (portrayed with supreme simpatico by Mr. Benigni) is a scallywag of the finest feather. Upon his arrival in the lovely Tuscan town of Arezzo to assume a waiter's job at the posh hotel where his curiously majestic uncle (Giustino Durano) is maitre d', he begins to work his comical conjurations. To the backdrop of this Italian Shangri-La, Guido dashes about performing grand illusions and astounding manipulations; a veritable magician of the heart. There isn't a contretemps the impish everyman can't turn on its ear and transmute to good advantage.
Benigni's style elicits a synthesis of several silent film comics. A little Chaplin, a smidgen of Keaton, perhaps some Charlie Chase and a dash of Ben Blue. And then maybe even a bit of Woody Allen for that schmaltzy touch of modern schnook. At first blush all of Guido's fancy footwork and incantations may seem a bit self-serving. But look again; practically every one of his connivances is meant for the benefit of others.
The first half of the dual-natured film is a buoyant dance. Everything that is good about the world is outlined and celebrated through Guido's optimism and joie de vivre.
In addition to providing a warm-hearted tale about familial devotion, Benigni also fashions a beautiful love story. Undaunted by his commoner (and Jewish) status, starry-eyed Guido courts the beautiful Dora (Nicoletta Braschi, Benigni's real-life wife), a schoolteacher and town Brahmin. Applying his romantic prestidigitation, he shows up Dora's fascist fiancé for his brutish insensitivity. Symbolic keys fall serendipitously from the sky, and in a watershed scene that could be dubbed "The Graduate, Italian Style," Guido's role as knight in shining armour is humorously authenticated. In the second half of the film, the rules will change as Guido's storied comical skills face the death-defying challenge of a lifetime.
When Mr. Benigni's totally enchanting brainchild (he co-wrote with Vincenzo Cerami and directs) suddenly makes an about-face and jumps ahead several years, the directorial convenience is a tad unsettling. But without lobbing on another twenty minutes, the presto-change-o transition seems the only way to relate that Guido is now wed to the pulchritudinous Dora, operates a bookstore, and is the proud father of a properly adoring son, Giosue, played with touching distinction by Giorgio Cantarini.
So you forgive the sudden conversion, allow Benigni to downshift and gather speed, and marvel at how he changes the temper of his awe-inspiring effort to match the ghastly notions that will soon follow. This dark side of the movie begins when Guido and little Giosue are gathered up and herded onto railroad cars destined for the camps. Evocative of De Sica's Bicycle Thief, it is now dad and son against the world. Because she is Christian, Dora is spared, yet demands to follow. The Nazis accommodate her.
Certainly it seems an impossible task. But seeing is believing. The filmmaker tiptoes through the most politically sensitive subject of the century, managing a haunting comic sense in his Holocaust story that has little dramatic precedent. Alternately acerbic and humanistic, the comedy is always respectful. The protagonist is the epitome of pluck, a spin-doctor extraordinaire who champions humour as mankind's ultimate tool of denial.
But you don't necessarily laugh as Guido repeatedly protects his son from the horrors of internment. Rather, you stare in awe, jaw agape as a cheerfully clowning Guido continually convinces a frightened Giosue that nothing is as it appears. And it's not that Giosue is gullible. Quite the contrary. This loving dad assuages with world class proficiency.
It's all a game, father assures son. The German concentration camp guards are just feigning to be the bad guys. You can't give in to hunger, pain or discomfort. Otherwise we'll lose points. The grand prize Giosue is promised for all this uncommon forbearance? Why, nothing less than a real tank.
Benigni's work points up the utter insanity of racial genocide, taking its own unique tack to make a soulful impact as poignant as Schindler's List. He does it by making the concept of a Holocaust completely unthinkable, totally insulting to our sense of civilisation. In an instance of doubt, the little boy despairs -- he overhears one man in the camp say that they are turning the Jews into buttons and soap. "Buttons and soap?" Guido laughs incredulously, pointing to weary bunkmate Bartolomeo (Pietro De Silva) and chiding Giosue: "You mean we'll soon work up a good lather with Bartolomeo? How preposterous." The sweet little boy issues a tentative smile. Verily. How preposterous.
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