Review of Life Is Beautiful (1997) by Matt M — 26 May 2013

To make a comedy about the holocaust would have been tricky for anyone, but Benigni, influenced by Chaplin's way of mixing tragedy with comedy, thanks his own intelligence and sensibility to make Life is Beautiful an originally appealing tale of a man who tries to hide the horrors of a concentration camp from his son.

There is a fable like quality of the film, which seems to purposely disregard historical accuracy, a fact that many of its opposers found annoying and shallow, but everything is explained with the fact that it is a story as told by the child himself.

Perhaps the most touching and charming bits, however, take place in the first part of the film, where Benigni is at his most romantic, as he tries to make Nicoletta Braschi, whom he famously calls 'Principessa' fall in love with him in the most unusual and somewhat audacious ways.