Roberto Benigni

Italy

But in tipping his hat to Charlie Chaplin and targeting the Holocaust as a subject for comedy as well as pathos, the irreverent Tuscan comic attempts by far the most ambitious and audacious project of his career in La vita e bella (Life is Beautiful.) 

The risk has already paid off with the film's selection for competition at Cannes – Benigni's first appearance in this context in a major international festival – and in its sterling results at the Italian box office over the Christmas period. Released by the Cecchi Gori Group, which also financed the $6.5 million feature, Life is Beautiful grossed over $36 million and swept the Italian critics' Nastri d'Argento awards, taking trophies for best film, actor (Benigni), supporting actor (Giustino Durano), story and screenplay.

Even more significantly, the film scored a major coup earlier this year when Miramax snapped up international rights from Cecchi Gori for a lofty sum, which unconfirmed reports place in the region of $7 million. That price-tag makes it the most expensive pickup of an Italian-language feature in history. The strong results from test screenings in New York subsequent to the Miramax deal have led to high expectations for the film's US release later this year.

Written by Benigni and regular script collaborator Vincenzo Cerami, the tragicomedy casts the director as Guido, a clownish country bumpkin who arrives in a large Tuscan town to start a new life in the late 1930s. 

The first part of the film chronicles his determined pursuit of prim schoolteacher Dora (Nicoletta Braschi), whom he rescues from her engagement to a pompous town prig. 
In what would normally constitute the happily-ever-after ending of this kind of light-hearted, fairytale romance, Guido marries Dora, sets up a business and the pair start a family. 

But as World War II takes hold, the inexorable rise of Fascism and anti-Semitism changes their futures suddenly when part-Jewish Guido is hauled off to a concentration camp with his uncle and his infant son, Giosue. 

Guido's utmost concern in the horrific environment becomes not his own survival and well-being, but the sheltering of his innocent son. Masking his own fear, he concocts an elaborate game in which the prisoners are contestants and the Nazi guards are quizmasters, convincing Giosue that they are competing for points to win an armoured tank and that the deprivation and hardship is merely part of the game.

Released in Italy at just over two hours, this tale of love, protection and sacrifice premieres in a slightly retooled version in Cannes. Addressing the problems of uneven rhythm in the film's opening stretch and disharmony between the story's first half, in which Guido and Dora meet and fall in love, and its second half, in which their family is torn apart, Miramax and Benigni have made some minor changes. These reportedly involve some trimming of the early reels plus the construction of an opening bookend with voiceover that unifies the story and more immediately establishes its context.

Best known to international audiences through his role as the demented escaped convict whose improbable grasp of English provided the biggest laughs in Jim Jarmusch's Down By Law, Benigni's previous films have been widely distributed outside Italy but, up to now, have failed to duplicate his resounding success at home. 

Director Blake Edwards has described the verbose, rubber-limbed funnyman as the natural heir to the comic talent of Peter Sellers. Perhaps the biggest disappointment of Benigni's international career was the failure of Edwards' Son of the Pink Panther, in which he followed in Sellers' footsteps. 

With the marketing muscle of Miramax behind him and a role that showcases not only his extraordinary comic gifts, but also an entirely new emotional depth, Life is Beautiful represents Benigni's best shot yet at breaking through beyond national borders.
David Rooney