When Comedy Blends with Agony - Life Is Beautiful - Essay Example

When Comedy Blends with Agony Former Yugoslavia suffered much tragedy in the past decades. It saw great horrors and sufferings, yet the people were able to smile through their tears and found hope amongst the ashes of their dreams to build a new future almost from the scratch from the old tattered one. The same strength and hope can be seen in its much acclaimed cinema that is able to create few comic instances even in the most tragic of movies. The cinema makers found a common trend amongst themselves for “their ability to mix social satire, embracing or bordering on surrealism, with playfully imaginative tales of individuals attempting to find personal happiness amongst all odds.” (excerpt from Laughter Dark & Joyous, pg. 24). Roberto Benigni and Emir Kusturica, both directors of high repute, could not have been more perfect in their endeavour to produce a sequence of visuals with just the right mix of pain, laughter, emptiness and the futility of war. Both ‘Life is beautiful’ produced in 1997 and ‘Underground’ produced in 1995, exemplify the power of cinema. Set in the backdrop of World War II, the movies have succeeded in feeding the viewers with a sumptuous dose of emotions, and celebrating human spirit in the face of adversity. Like many tales our storytellers are not afraid to explore the dark side of humanity and to celebrate the magnificient triumph of the good over the evil, and what could be darker than life exhausted in concentration camps and be a witness to the horrid extermination of an entire generation. Both the movies use humour which is dry, dark and slapstick. However, ‘Life is beautiful’ is lighter than ‘Underground’. While the former uses more of dry humourous comments, exaggerated body movements and an extensive play of expressions by the protagonist, ‘Underground is more subtle’. ‘Life is beautiful is a pleasant blend of entertainment, education, and inspiration with its potent combination of humor, poignancy, and dignity. Plenty of laugh-out-loud moments beautifully sprinkled on the times of tragedy, coupled with Guidos antics make the despair bearable for the viewers. ‘Underground’ falls more under the genre of dark comedy, with a plot intertwined with love, sex and treachery. ‘Life is beautiful’ kicks off with a satisfying breezy little romantic comedy, with Benigni wandering down the town, on his vehicle, which aptly matches up to his off-the-wall comedy antics. Kerrie Piper (Life is Beautiful – page 17) remarks that, “Guido is a very funny character and the audience finds itself laughing at what he says, how he behaves and the whole range of comic antics he employs. Slapstick humour is used heavily, especially in the first half of the film, where we see Guido crashing into people, smashing eggs on Rodolfo’s head,….The humour in the camp largely comes from Guido’s desire to keep the game going for Giosue’s sake” It is impossible to not like Guido (Benigni), the happy-go-lucky buffoon who has a chance encounter with beautiful schoolteacher named Dora (Nicoletta Braschi, Benignis real-life wife), while roaming through the countryside of fascist Italy in 1939. As their mutual affection gradually deepens, the lovers soon ride away, get married and raise their son Giosue (Giorgio Cantarini). The Italian humourist, Roberto Benigni’s portrayal of Guido is captivating. Guido happens to be the foolish, yet witty, charming, and a master at understanding the deepest of human emotions. His extravagant personality is shown in the close-up shots of his cheery face, exaggerated hand and body movements and the incessant talking. “This is particularly relevant to the film, as it deals with very sensitive and emotional material, the Holocaust, and deals with it in a most unusual fashion.” (Kerrie Piper - Life is beautiful – 2003, page 14) As the movie opens with a grey misty screen with an eerie silence and hollow wind, the melody of a nursery rhyme breaks sets a different mood. Guido’s irrepressible comic side is heightened right at the outset, when the Director playing the part of Guido Orefice riding down a long road in the town of Arrezo, Italy shoots off the road as his car brakes fail. Likewise in ‘Underground’ Kusturica has showcased some of his trade mark comedy scenes that he seems to repeat in many of his movies. One of them is that the protagonist is shown skidding on some slippery sort of surface, finally landing on the bum. This scene finds a repeat in the movie, “Underground”, where it happen a number of times. Marko is shown skidding in front of the bathtub, the soldiers in the German army slip in front of the Café Moscow, Blacky is also shown to skid while he chases Natalija. When a much intrigued Giosue questions his father about a sign prohibiting Jews and dogs, Guido explains to him by saying that it was a completely arbitrary selection and he suggests they put up a similar sign regarding spiders and Visigoths. The film mixes politics and comedy effortlessly to debunk the racist ideas. Similarly ‘Underground’, which the Slant magazine describes as ‘a sweltering, morally inquisitive work of political narrative fiction that laments our propensity for auto-destruction is emotionally gut-wrenching and devastatingly funny chronicle of a death foretold’ is very apt. Kusturica says that he has always been interested in making comedies, but certain aspects of his personality make him end up making films that are closer to tragedy. (Emir Kusturica, pg. 122). He too like Roberto Benigni tends to vulgarise the lofty and elevates the ordinary. How Benigni uses Guido, the buffoon yet the master of comedy and quick wit, to safeguard his son’s innocence by giving a hilarious account of the concentration camp is touching. How humour can give us the power to control the scariest patches of life is a valuable lesson of this film. However, using a Nazi death camp as the setting for an imaginary game might have proved risky as most viewers critiqued the movie, saying the slapstick humour was not funny and that the movie mocked and trivialized the trauma of the victims in the camps. The humour part of the movie, I feel totally depends on the angle you watch it from. “Obviously the camp that Benigni portrays in no way approximates the horror of the actual camps. The film is more concerned with portraying the power of love and the role of humour and imagination in the face of tragedy and death.” (excerpts from Kerrie Piper – Life is Beautiful, page 16) Crucial to convincing his son of this game’s existence is a scene where Guido translates a guard’s instructions, one of the comic highlights of the film. In a very moving scene later, where other children are gradually disappearing into the camps gas chambers, Guido uses humor to keep his son oblivious to their fate, sparing Giosue from the emotional agony and sense of helplessness that he himself is feeling. While Guido’s comic drama sometimes baffles the audience, it also tends to scare the audience as to what the repercussions might be. ‘Underground’ too “is a unique blend of lowbrow slapstick and sophisticated war commentary.” Slant magazine remarks. A block party in 1941, marching to the enigmatic cultural beat of the country makes you tap your feet and hum to its tune. Kusturica introduces us to the two protagonists, the enthusiastic members of the communist party in a very stylish way. Blacky (Lazar Ristovski) and Marko (Miki Manojlovic) are seen returning to their homes on the brink of Hitlers invasion of Yugoslavia in a drunken revelry, the kind that erupts frequently throughout the course of the film. The comic element comes only after the plot gains ground. When Blacky is kidnapped by the Nazis during his attempt to get married to Natalija (a popular actress), Marko saves him but sends him underground hiding from the war while he seduces Natalija with power, poetry and alcohol. By the end when Yugoslavia no longer exists and Blacky is out in the world, fighting for his country and searching for his dead son; Marko and Natalija are in hiding but are still war profiteers. As the movie transits from a grave to an even serious situation, the audience gets nervous. It is difficult sometimes to keep up with the conflicting emotions. There is a heavy jolt and the heart skips a beat, when a German soldier directs his pistol at an innocent Jewish and to witness the scared, tearful, eyes mixed in multiple emotions of the face with the body coiling like there were no bones’ its heart-rending. But suddenly, a splash of humour plays with the sadness and it resists the audience to smile quickly. The most notable thing about ‘Life is beautiful’ is that despite the audience preparing itself to go on a roller-coster of heavy sighing emotions, they are also uneasy to accept the humour in the background. You want to cry and ponder but Guido does not let you do that. ‘Lifes a funny business, or so they say’, remarks, Geoff king, in his study on ‘Film comedy’. He believes that "Comedy can provide a thrill of transgression offered in an environment that renders it largely safe and unthreatening; it can have its cake, ice cream (or its shit!) and eat it." Hence, he notes a key distinction between comedy built around the comedian and comedy built around the comic situation, which causes mixed responses from the viewer. How Roberto Benigni manages to keep the mood of the movie mixed throughout is magnificient. Defying rigid authority by playing truant and enjoying every morsel of life is perhaps the lesson of ‘Life is beautiful’. Right from the outset, ‘life is beautiful’ hums the tune of a comedy that intertwines with political realities. As Guido unwittingly gives the Fascist salute to onlookers waiting for a government process to pass through the audience melts into peels of laughter. Benigni has been accused of making a mockery of the Holocaust in "Life is Beautiful". Even though it seems to be an irreverent take on a sensitive subject matter, "Life is Beautiful" is a truly powerful film that manages to entertain, educate, and inspire with its potent combination of humor, poignancy, and dignity. Plenty of laugh-out-loud moments beautifully sprinkled on the times of tragedy, coupled with Guidos antics make the despair bearable for the viewers. Benigni’s direction, screenplay and the brilliant sense of comic timing resembles Charlie Chaplin’s craft in most ways. Benigni has dealt each scene with great sensitivity. He brings out the horrific scenes inside the camp with a commensurate dose of but showing the optimism, a veritable beacon of hope and sunshine for his fellow prisoners and, most importantly, his son. Kusturica unlike Benigni has been careful not to make the metaphor ‘Underground’ funny. Unlike Benigni who plays with the camp in the most hilarious way, differs from his contemporary Kusturica. Kusturica’s humour resembles more to the likes of Haruki Murakami’s book, ‘Kafka on the shore’. Kusturica too plays with imagination. In the underground people ride a bicycle in the air making the cycle bulb turn on and show light at a woman’s womb, waiting for the miracle of life. Babies become old enough to marry. Kids run around playing football. The notable thing about Underground is the bravado to string out this deception and its consequences over 50 years. Amidst all the treachery, and sadness, there is a significant presence of comic relief too. Like, when Blacky returns to the real world, his experience juxtaposed to Markos wartime experiences, and Blacky is unable to distinguish between reality and deception. In the outside world a film is being made on Blacky’s life which has been falsely narrated by Marko to the world. Blacky escapes the underground and ends up seeing the crew of the film with Germans. He believes the war is continuing because of the actors. So he believes the unreal film to be reality which is actually based on unreal citations of his life. Despite restlessness among the audience too, the movie is able to communicate the emotion by infusing a few playful moments. Another instance is when Blacky is getting married to Natalija and he keeps asking “where is the priest?” to everyone around. Pat comes a reply, “The priest will arrive any moment now” and the Germans gush in and abduct Blacky, and later when Blacky’s wife Vera is in labor pain and cries out “Where are you now, you Blacky bastard,” it makes you laugh. Hence to class “Underground” as a comedy is difficult. It is more of a satire or as the New York Times called the genre, a ‘dark humour’. Kusturica ends the movie in a splendid way. In death, Marko and Blacky are reunited one more time and their block party breaks off from the rest of the world. The movie is the perfect blend of poetic amalgamation of genres, socio-cultural and political satire, musicals, war-docu-drama, apocalypse, comedy, surrealism and above all the human exploration of power, love and integrity. The climax of both movies is nearly the same. ‘Life is beautiful’ maintains the illusion that everything will be all right, and it breaks this illusion only when Guido is killed, even though one might have hoped for the fantasy to continue and to see him coming back around the corner wearing the soldier’s uniform. ‘Underground’ too breaks many fantasies and brings the audience back to reality. What is amazing about the directors is that in spite of using humour to an extent where the scene becomes surreal, they manage to bring the audience to reality. Kusturica and Benigni use humour to reinforce the personal nature of the story. When the audience laughs it is not at the characters but out of sympathy with their plight. The plots of both ‘Life is beautiful’ and ‘Underground’ are different and so is the mix of characters. Powerful acting and an even gripping direction coupled with a befitting screenplay has raised the bar of movie making in the late 20th century. To analyse and conclude the creative genius of these masters is, however, difficult. Each has his own trademark signature that makes his movies unique. But, the thing that joins them is the unsuspected comedy that one seems to glimpse in so much miseries and gloom. Hats off to them for making us laugh with tears in our eyes! World War II took place between the invention of television and the availability of television, but it has still been the subject of many movies, television dramas and comedies all around the world. The popularity of these two movies like a lot others reveal that the people of all generations seem to share an interest in the complexity of what daily life was like during this historical wartime era. From documentaries to miniseries, representations of the war have found numerous audiences all across the globe. The genre of the world war movies, especially those with a comic element attached to them seem to fulfill human curiosity about daily existence during the war and the comic element is a breather. EOM - 2501 Sources: 1. Geoff King, Geoff Siegel. Film Comedy. Wallflower Press 2002. 2. Anthony Leong. Life is Beautiful Movie Review. Web 1998. URL: http://www.mediacircus.net/lifeisbeautiful.html 3. James Brundage. Life is Beautiful. Web January 10, 1999. Filmcritic.com. URL: http://www.filmcritic.com/reviews/1998/life-is-beautiful/?OpenDocument 4. The New York Times. URL: http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9c01e7da103ef931a25753c1a960958260 5. Cinema of Flames: Balkan Film, Culture and Media by Dina Iordanova. 6. Andrew Horton. Laughter Dark & Joyous in Recent Films from the Former Yugoslavia. Film Quarterly. Vol. 56, No. 1. Autumn 2002. University of Calofornia Press. 7. Andrew Horton. “Satire and Sympathy: A New Wave of Yugoslavian Film Makers”. Cineaste. Vol. 11, 2. 1982. 8. Grace Russo Bullaro. Beyond Life is Beautiful: Comedy and Tragedy in the Cinema of Roberto Benigni. 2004. Read More