It's almost two movies: the first half is a charming, funny romantic comedy, and the second is a haunting Holocaust story. Guido (Roberto Benigni) courts and wins Dora (Nicoletta Braschi) with fairytale-like charm. They have a child, Joshua, and shortly thereafter, Guido (who's Jewish) and Joshua are taken away by the SS. Dora, who's not Jewish, insists on going with them. They are sent to a concentration camp, where Dora is separated from her family. To keep Joshua from getting frightened, Guido tells him the whole thing is a game -- he gets points by hiding from the guards, keeping quiet, not asking for food -- and first prize is a real tank. Guido manages to come up with an explanation for every horror that Joshua encounters, manages to laugh even though he knows how serious their situation is.
A lot of critics have complained that the movie treats the Holocaust lightly or doesn't show the true atrocity of it. I disagree -- first of all, I think Benigni shows the horrors plenty, but even if he didn't, we all know about the Holocaust, which brings me to my second point: if someone doesn't know how inhuman the Holocaust was, they ought to be learning it someplace other than the movie theater. He is certainly not making light of the concentration camps -- his jokes and cajoling to Joshua carry a distinct tinge of desperation. I think he handled a difficult concept very gracefully.
If it seems implausible that Joshua could truly have been so oblivious to the camp's horrors, just keep in mind that it's a fable. I think what he was aiming for with the air of romance and magic in the first half was to get us into the mindset of a fairytale so that we could more readily accept the improbabilities of the second half.
Benigni is absolutely fantastic. He's such a gifted physical and verbal comedian -- even the subtitles couldn't keep up with his rapid-fire diction. This is definitely a must-see.
Back to homepage
Reviews A to F
Reviews G to L
Reviews M to R
Reviews S to Z
Search