"Life is Beautiful"

Film 2 (365)
Life is Beautiful
Guido (Roberto Benigni) brings Dora (Nicoletta Braschi) to his home after helping her escape from
her birthday party in Life is Beautiful.
"Life is Beautiful" is one of those films I always put on the back burner with little interest in watching. I was in high school when this film was released in the US in 1999. I remember most vividly Roberto Benigni jumping over the seats at the Academy Awards as he climbed his way to the stage to accept his Oscar.

Truthfully I didn't really know what the movie was about. It was in Italian and it took place during the war. Benigni road a bicycle through the streets with a goofy grin on his face. That's all I knew. Boring… 

Boy, what was wrong with me!?

This film is extremely touching. The trailer I've embedded below is quite deceiving. I ensure you this film will make you laugh hard and gut punch you with reality a moment later. I can't really say it's like anything I've seen before (in terms of theme and approach to that theme).

In all honesty I don't think I would have appreciated this film as much as I do now, but it's so good I would have laughed just as much back then. If you don't know, "Life is Beautiful" follows Guido (Benigni), an Italian Jew around and during WWII, as he pines after Dora (Nicoletta Braschi), a non-Jew, who he eventually marries and bears a son with, Joshua (Giorgio Cantarini). The film is split into two parts, the first being the time he swoons Dora away from her fiance prior to when the war begins, and the second half follows his time in a concentration camp separated from his wife but protecting his son.

As I write this I now realize how intricate this film really is. But during the entire film Guido's humor is ever present. It reminded me of the late great Jacques Tati. Guido uses his humor to save his son, who should have been killed in the gas chambers but whose own stubbornness against taking a shower saved him! Benigni's character turns the camp into a "game" for his son, who believes if they score 1,000 points they can go home with a real battle tank for first prize.

I don't cry during movies, but this definitely made me water up a time or two. It's well paced and I never felt burdened by the subtitles thanks to the humor, which isn't always a punch line but often very physical humor.

My 11-year-old daughter and I laughed very hard together during a bit where Guido "kidnaps" Dora away from her birthday party, wrecks his car during a rain storm, turns a pillow into an umbrella, and manages to rip the back of Dora's dress off. Oh, and let's not forget the green horse.

This is definitely on my top ten list of comedies. There is so much to this film that I could write and write. But that would take away the magic if you haven't seen it. I urge you to see this film now streaming on Hulu.

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