Life is Beautiful

My Rating - 5 (Powerful and Moving)

Some days I sit back and think, “This is a joke, right? This isn't my life. This can't be happening. Not to me. Certainly not to me.” And then I go right back to watching reruns of Matlock in my circa-1971 Barcalounger. After a couple hours of diaphragm-cramping crying jags, I realize that life is a comedy. A comedy of errors, maybe even a tragicomedy, but a comedy nonetheless. If I were to be so stupid as to miss out on the joys of life because I were too shortsighted to see beyond my own life's puns, then I deserve whatever misery I am wallowing in.

Life is Beautiful is not about this life-as-comedy at all except, perhaps, as internalized by the protagonist Guido Orefice (Roberto Benigni). To Guido, life is a fantastic storybook to be interpreted in whatever way makes you most happy, or at least it's his duty to make life a storybook for those that he loves. To this end, he uses unlimited amounts of joy, luck, and chutzpah to convince everyone else that the world they inhabit is extraordinary.

The movie has its flaws; the script is a bit weak, the development is nonexistent, the two major acts seem shoehorned together, some of the sets are really cheap, other people's reactions to the characters strain incredulity (e.g. no one is annoyed or envious that Guido hid Joshua, what? no one else there lost their children?), and there's a notable indifference to the realities called for by the script (e.g. no one ages, and both Dora (Nicoletta Braschi) and Guido are far too old for the characters they are supposedly portraying) and the "realities" as portrayed onscreen. If, however, you buy into the fiction that the world is trying to create, if you suspend your disbelief to the point required by the story, you will be treated to an engaging, wonderful, and powerful story.

I watched this movie almost back-to-back with The Pianist. While The Pianist may have been the one to win the Best Picture oscar, Life is Beautiful is a far superior film (not to slight The Pianist in any way, mind, but it doesn't hold a candle to LiB). Life is Beautifl is so powerful because you believe the characters and believe in the characters far more strongly than in most movies. There's empathy and wonder and joy in them thar actors, all of which comes across, and all of which leads to some real emotional investment by the audience. You belive the world Guido is spinning both because it would be wonderful but also because it's just so outrageous. And charming. Being able to see the horror of the situation in which the characters are put while also seeing Guido-world, and Guido's absolute refusal to let “reality” into his family's reality, adds a level of unease and discord to the viewing experience that, to quote Oscar Wilde, is quite terrible. The ending is particularly emotional (as one would expect), but I found the last scene with Dr. Lessing to be even more powerful than that for reasons I'll outline in the spoiler section below (highlight it with your mouse if you want to read it).

** SPOILER WARNING **

** END SPOILER **

In the end, what could have been a maudlin shitstorm with a psuedo-Chaplin vibe turned out to be simply a great movie. If Guido can keep him and his family from a navel-gazing despondence, by gods I can keep my mind off the JUICE.

5 stars for Life is Beautiful. I'm just annoyed it took me 6 years to see it.