La Vita è Bella

(Life is Beautiful)

A film by Roberto Benigni (Italy, 1998),

with Roberto Benigni, Nicoletta Braschi, Giorgio Cantarini, Marisa Paredes, Horst Buchholz.

Winner of the 1998 Cannes Film Festival Grand Prize.

During World War II in a concentration camp in Italy, Guido tries to disguise the horrible reality to his 5-year-old son, Giosue, by pretending to take part to some huge kind of contest...

La Vita è Bella definitely goes off the beaten track: between the "comic tragedy" and the "tragic comedy", Roberto Benigni had rather call it a fable in spite of the graveness of the general background. The story is not about WWII anyway, it's about the love of a father for his family. It was very bold from Benigni to choose the WWII background but he brilliantly made it: La Vita è Bella is a moving story that cleverly avoids the classic pitfalls of melodrama and simultaneously achieves an amazing feat: put us in good spirits! And that is actually the message Benigni wants to convey: Life is beautiful! The film is therefore full of hope, cheerfulness and optimism, in the image of the cast, which turns incredibly convincing and likeable. With La Vita è Bella, Benigni succesfully thumbs his nose at all traditionalists. A new inspiration has come in the cinematographic landscape!...

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