Wow, what a great movie. I just finished watching 'Life Is Beautiful', a foreign film (Italy) with Roberto Benigi (I think that's how it's spelled) in it. I really understand why he won Best Actor Award at the Academy Awards that year. It has been a long time since I have seen a movie with such a positive outlook on life. And not just the positive parts of life, but also the parts that are the most fragile, tender, and most impotantly (in this movie, anyway), humorous. Roberto Benigi plays the part of an Italian Jew in the late 1930s/early 1940s, who, along his adventure of a life, falls in love with a 'princess', works as a waiter in an upscale resturant, becomes friends with a doctor who likes riddles, and is sent to a concentration camp, among other things. The story centers around him and his family, and how he works to make their lives full of love and happiness, even in the darkest of times. It is a story of great resilience, of how good triumphs over evil, even in the face of ultimate sacrifice.
I felt that the story had wonderful examples of courage, sacrifice, love, and ultimately joy. It is like a light shining in the darkness of Holywood's world of pessimistic, self-absorbed, hopeless, material, films. And what an irony that it doesn't even come from Holywood, but from a country far removed from the materialism and prosperity of the USA. It comes from a country that has seen the war that it tells it's tales of. It seems close to the real thing, the way they did the production. And yet, even for a low budget film, I was modestly impressed with the score (although the main theme was about it, through the entire thing, with a few variations), and thought that although not ground breaking, the cinematography was enjoyable as well. And I have to say I'll always fall for a foreign film, in a different language. It would have been an altogether different experience if it had been dubbed. I loved hearing the entire cast speak in the several languages there were in the movie. Over all, well done technically. And the script...Oh the script! What a piece of art, so intricately devised, and so masterfully worked out by the accomplished Roberto Benigi. I have to say, I'm somewhat disappointed that all of his other films have been so firmly panned. But this is most assuredly a jewel of a film to be proud of, and it stands by itself as a story that deserves to be told many times over.
Overall, a top twenty, maybe top ten favorite of mine now. Soon as you get a chance, rent it buy it, borrow it, anything you can to watch it. I think you'll love it.
Until next time,
Joel
P.S.
Don't watch this film right after watching, 'It's a wonderful Life', or else be sure to be calling one, 'It's a beautiful Life', and the other, 'Life is Wonderful'. It's really quite confusing, and frustrating for those who like their movie titles straight. If you find it easier, you could always name it by it's proper name, and in it's proper language, 'La Vita รจ Bella' (I think it's really translated some weird way, with the verbs and nouns all mixed up). I actually kind of like it that way though.
Joel
