Released
in 1997 under the title La Vita e Bella and
in the United States in 1998, Life Is Beautiful,
directed, cowritten, and acted by Roberto Benigni, tells the
story of Guido, a glib Chaplinesque half-Jewish waiter hired
by his uncle who enjoys making up stories and engaging in
comic antics soon after arriving in Arrezzo, mistaken for
the King of Italy on tour, during 1939. Guido softens the
heart of a Nazi spy, German Doctor Lessing (played by Horst
Buchholz), by posing and solving riddles, and he infuriates
the Fascist authorities of Mussolini but gets away with his
fun. Although he dreams of opening a bookstore, his license
is refused by the Fascist town clerk, one of many Nazi collaborators
(reminding us of the 1971 film The Garden of the Finzi-Continis).
Guido is also infatuated with Dora (played by Nicoletta Braschi),
a schoolteacher who plans to marry the Fascist; but his joyful
humor wins her over at the engagement party, and she elopes
and marries him. In 1944, the Germans have taken over Italy.
In 1945, Jews are arrested, including Guido, Dora (a Gentile
who insists on going along), and Giosué (played by Giogrio
Cantarini), their five-year-old son, and sent by train to
Auschwitz. Indeed, Benigni’s father was sent to such a labor
camp, and therein beings the seriousness of the film. Rather
than resigning himself to the drudgery of work, Guido continues
his antics. For Dora, he manages to broadcast over an unattended
loudspeaker various announcements and Offenbach’s music, all
without retribution from the capo, and she responds with all
smiles. For Giosué, who might otherwise have been depressed
or even exterminated, as were all children and older people
unable to work, he dreams up a game of 1,000 points, telling
Giosué that the outing is an elaborate birthday present. He
tells Giosué that the game is difficult, but the winner gets
a tank. Guido interprets every untoward event to Giosué as
a gambit requiring a clever response in the quest to accumulate
more points. The old and young are incinerated, and the able-bodied
are forced to endure long, exhausting hours of work, but Guido
does not allow Giosué to be distracted from the game by such
events as the disappearance of fellow "gameplayers," the inmates
who have faced the wrath of the Nazis. In the end, Guido dies
as the allies approach the prison because he was looking for
Dora rather than following the kapo’s directions. However,
Dora survives. Giosué, warned by Guido to hide until the prison
is completely quite, finally comes out of hiding, a tank appears,
and an American soldier invites Giosué to take a ride; his
"prize" has arrived. Unfortunately, the Pollyanna story would
have been quite impossible, even in the milder totalitarianism
of Mussolini’s Italy, but the film tells us that we should
look for a bright side to sad events. Harsh political realities
usually challenge the less powerful to submit to authority,
but clever people can always find a way to laugh. The tagline
of the film is "an unforgettable fable that proves love, family
and imagination conquer all." Instead of criticizing the rather
naïve political message of the film, which has infuriated
the far left and the far right, we might recall At First
Sight, the story of the blind man who was happy as
a lark because he always found helpful people. Yes, the saintly
people of the planet bring us joy despite adversities, and
we can all be saints if we would just try. MH
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