On my list of top 5 movies of all time is an Italian subtitled film by director Roberto Benigni called Life Is Beautiful, a film set against the background of the second world war. For those of you who refuse to see a film if it’s subtitled… SHUT UP AND WATCH IT. It is one of the most powerful, effective and engaging films ever made. Pure beauty.
Now Benigni is turning his creative talents towards the war in Iraq. There are few people who I believe could approach this project and look at it from a human point of view and yet make you laugh despite the tragedy unfolding around it. This was the true triumph of Life is Beautiful, and what gives a project of this nature a chance at being something truly special.
The Goliaths over at IMDB give us this:
In the film Benigni will take the lead role of a poet who gets caught up in events in Iraq in March 2003 when the US launched its attack on Saddam Hussein’s regime. He tells Italian radio. “War naturally is the background of the film and my character is directly involved in it after this poet ends up in Iraq by pure chance. What is extraordinary is his vision of the world. This is one person representing all the people in the world.”
It’s rare that people with such talent are willing to approach this kind of subject matter… especially when it revolves around a topic that is so hotly debated amongst such divided opinions. Heck, everyone agrees the Holocaust is bad, Nazis are bad, the devil is bad… but this one is more tricky and history has yet to render it’s opinion. I can’t wait to see what Benigni can do with this.
