Italian : La vita e bella, is an Italian comedy drama film. Directed & Co -written by Roberto Benigni. Vincenzo Cerami is the other writer. Starring Roberto Benigni & Nicoletta Braschi.
Benigni plays Guido Orefice, a Jewish Italian Bookshop owner, who employs his imagination to shield his son from the horrors of internment in a Nazi concentration camp.
The film was partially inspired by the book ‘In the End I beat Hitler’ by Rubino Romeo Salmoni & by Benigni’s father , who spent two years in the Bergen- Belsen concentration camp during World War II.
The film was shot in Arezzo, Tuscany including the Badia delle Sante Flora e Lucilla. The concentration camp was set in an old abandoned factory near Papigno (Terni). The “prize’tank is an M4 Sherman.
Made on a budget of Lit. 15 billion , it made $ 230.1 million. It was an overwhelming critical & commercial success.
It is the second highest grossing foreign language film in the US, after Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. One of the highest grossing non-English language movies of all time.
The National Board of Review included it in the top five films of 1998.
It won the Grand Prix at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival, nine David di Donatello awards ( including Best Film), five Nastro d’Argento Awards in Italy, two European Film Awards & three Academy awards, including Best Foreign Language film & Best Actor for Benigni, the first for a male non-English performance.
Rotten Tomatoes has rated it at 7.5/10. Michael Wilmington of Chicago Tribune gave it a score of 100/100, calling it ‘A deeply moving blend of cold terror & rapturous hilarity. Lovingly crafted by Italy’s top comedian & most popular filmmaker, it’s that rare comedy that takes on a daring & ambitious subject & proves worthy of it’.
Now, Michael is one who has said it all! This film can be watched from the start, in the middle or the final sequences. It never fails to amaze me. I must have watched it n number of times & never get tired of it!
A masterpiece !
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