Life is Beautiful (La Vita E Bella) (1998)

WARNING: SPOILERS

This is one of the longest standing films on my review backlist, and, as I approach 30, my memory is fading so this might be briefer than usual.

The main question is how have I managed not to see this film in the 10 years since it which shot onto the world stage and made it's eccentric director and star, Roberto Benigni, a global sensation (who has subsequently disappeared from all mainstream view)? It also won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language film that year, as so many 'foreign language' films centred on kids seem to do. Set in an Italian concentration camp during the latter stages of the Second World War, this now well known story tells the charming but brutally tragic tale of Guido, who uses humour to deflect the true realities of concentration camp life from his young son and who manages to convince him that the whole thing is just an elaborate game.

Benigni delivers an astonishing and memorable performance as Guido and eats up every scene with dramatic gusto and relish. This is Benigni's darling and it shows. So much passion and energy is invested in every scene, every line, every look, you become hopelessly entangled in the whole astonishing spectacle to such effect that you, too, suspend belief about the realities of concentration camp life and begin to hope and wish they will just come through this misty game. However, Benigni is clever enough not to let you forget entirely - the loss of humanity for all those involved on the other side is made particularly apparent in one scene where Guido meets an old friend, Doctor Lessing, who is on the camp staff, in the canteen. The true harrowing reality of this moment only fully hits home as the credits role and the tears flow. It's a great scene and Benigni deserves great credit for the tragic structure of the whole film and the impact of it's hardest punches (and they are hard) amid genuine moments of sweetness, light and humour. If I have spent much time on Benigni, I cannot apologise. The other performances are, of course, fully commendable and add vital layers to every sensuous thread Benigni is weaving. Nicoletta Braschi, as Guido's wife, Giorgio Cantarini, as his son, and Horst Buchholz, as Lessing, deserve particular and obvious mention. However, this is Benigni's stage, his moment and his achievement. It is his film in every sense.

I said my memory was failing. It maybe is, but there is no way a film like this cannot but linger in the confines of one's mind, no matter how dusty and cobwebbed it may be. I defy anyone not to cry as the credits role and, as I have said, the film's true impact and depth hits home, namely the scene I mention and many others besides. Particularly the moment of Guido's death. I hate spoilers but feel I cannot comment fully on this great film without commenting on this. There is no Hollywood demise, no last great, heroic, speech, no lingering sense of trauma Willem Defoe style. Guido is simply taken behind a building, quite unexpectedly, and shot off camera. Nothing, surely, can represent the true reality of facism and its horrors than this. This is how many millions lost their lives in 1940's Europe, and how they continue to lose them today in similar conditions. No speech, no words, no last shout or shriek even, just the lingering dust of silent human heroism hanging softly and delicately on the night air.

A+