How did we let it happen?

That's what the world cried after the discovery that the Nazis had slaughtered over six million Jews, Gypsies, cripples and others during World War II. And for the last fifty years, the world's scholars and artists of all crafts have explored the Holocaust in search of their own answers, however meager they may be. Roberto Benigni's Life is Beautiful [La Vita e Bella] is the latest foray into this realm. It's not a retrospective on the Holocaust as much as it is a vehicle for Benigni's considerable comedic/dramatic prowess. And while the film is touching and poignant in parts, it cannot ultimately succeed because Benigni gives us a view of the Holocaust too placid to believe.

The first half of Life is Beautiful is a virtual comedic masterpiece. Benigni is in his element here, playing a wide-eyed book store owner, Guido Orefice, in a small Italian town in 1939 where he falls (literally and figuratively) for an attractive school teacher named Dora (Nicoletta Braschi). Benigni's antics are reminiscent of the old Chaplin films. (Many people will notice the homage to The Great Dictator with which the film opens). Unlike current American slapstick, the jokes are intelligent, catering to an audience that actually has the capacity to think for itself. Benigni plays Guido as an innocent, charming and charismatic, and most importantly, he always manages to be "at the right place, at the right time." A particularly funny sequence ensues when Benigni pretends to be a fascist inspector from Rome, here to lecture at Dora's elementary school. Benigni's playful mockery on the fascist concept of "Aryan superiority" is clever and yet effectively bittersweet.

The second half of the film opens with the introduction of Guido and Dora's son Giosue (played intelligently by youngster Giorgio Cantarini). Of course, this means that Guido was able to woo the young school teacher, but to anyone who's ever seen romantic comedy, this comes as no surprise. War and fascism have taken their toll on this small town and Benigni finally gives us a glimpse of the Jewish struggle. "No Jews or Dogs allowed" Giosue reads on a storefront. "Why don't they let Jewish people or Dogs in," the boy asks. The father replies by saying that it happens to be that store's preference, and that he will put a sign on their bookstore saying they won't allow Visigoths to venture in. It's funny, but poignant. And the father's attempt to shield his son from the horrors of fascist hatred is moving, though ultimately the film's great flaw.

Soon enough, the anti-semitic movement overwhelms Italy, and Guido and his family are carted off to a concentration camp, supposed to resemble Aushwitz. We are meant to believe that here, in the closing months of the war, Guido is able to live a lie by convincing his son that their confinement is voluntary, that they are playing a game and that by denying himself extra food, and eventually hiding form the German officers, young Giosue is earning "points" to win a tank. It's every little boy's dream game, but for the audience to believe that Guido is able to pull it off is absurd. The concentration camp looks like a cardboard cut-out; there is no death, and strangely, no suffering. No tears are shed, no pain is expressed. Maybe this is because the Holocaust is being viewed through the eyes of the boy. The only thing we see of the father is through his relation with the son, and Benigni never gives us an intimate glimpse into Guido's soul. Is the man tormented? Does he sleep at night? Does he fear? We're told that Guido is Jewish, but we never really see what being Jewish means to him. He never speaks of it. Benigni is so focused on highlighting his clown's continuing and almost magical "strokes of luck" that he seems to forget that the film is taking place in a death camp, not a circus.

The most poignant moment of the picture comes when Giosue tells his father that he's heard Jews are put in the ovens and that people will be made into soap and buttons. "Nonsense," Guido shouts. "People can't be made into buttons or soap! It's absurd, it's ridiculous, it has to be an invention of someone's imagination", the exasperated Guido contends. Soon, both he and the boy are laughing, and in the audience, tears are streaming. People can't be turned into buttons, the director is saying, but they were.

The second half of the film is riddled with scripted moments like these, powerful moments, in which one finds his/her face nodding to and fro as if to say, "It shouldn't have happened by all standards of humanity, but it did." Unfortunately, the placid pictures of life in the death camps betray the words. While death is deliberated in words, it is never expressed on screen. Some contend that it wasn't Benigni's goal to show more death and violence. But as creative as Benigni is with his script and camera, he is not able to overwhelm the fact that his picture is supposed to be taking place during the Holocaust. Parts of the film are over-bloated with melodrama, and rarely do the pictures make the audience uncomfortable.

It's hard to tell if any comedy could have succeeded in this framework. Benigni tried in earnest, I believe, to get his audiences to ponder the strength of the greatest human compassion and love in the face of the greatest human wickedness. It's not completely to his discredit that he didn't fully succeed. His story is, ultimately, a story about a father protecting his son through the only mechanism at his disposal. And while it's inconcievable that a human being would live through a death camp with a warm-hearted smile on his face, Life is Beautiful is a testament to just that: even with all its sorrow, anguish, torture and pain, life in the face of a child must be beautiful indeed.