BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Drama	Theatrical Trailer(s)	Yes, 1 - 1.33:1, 16x9, Dolby Digital 2.0
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	Yes, 1 - Dolby Digital Aurora
Year Released	1997	Commentary Tracks	None
Running Time	111:36 minutes (not 116 minutes as stated on packaging)	Other Extras	Biography - Cast Main Menu Audio and Animation
RSDL/Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region	4	Director	Roberto Benigni
Studio Distributor	Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	Roberto Benigni Nicoletta Braschi
Case	Some ghastly translucent plastic thing
RRP	$34.95	Music	Roberto Benigni (just kidding) Nicola Piovani

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	No	MPEG	None
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Dolby Digital	5.1
16x9 Enhancement		Soundtrack Languages	Italian (Dolby Digital 5.1, 448Kb/s) English (Dolby Digital 5.1, 448Kb/s)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Macrovision	Yes	Smoking	Yes
Subtitles	English English for the Hearing Impaired	Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    In preparation for reviewing the disc, I indulged in my usual search of the Internet Movie Database details for the film. When checking out the awards and nominations for the film, I was astounded by the number of awards the film has won, including: Academy Awards, American Comedy Awards, Australian Film Institute Awards, British Academy Awards, Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards, Cannes Film Festival Awards, Chicago Film Critics Association Awards, Cesar Awards, David di Donatello Awards, European Film Awards and a whole bundle more. I started to get a little worried as the whole deal started to ring the old HYPE bells very heavily in the brain. So, the anticipation of finally getting to see the film was starting to get a little tempered, and I have to confess that when I pulled the disc out of the post pack it came in, I was more than a little worried. I was confronted by one of the absolute worst looking DVD cases that I have ever seen. Things were starting to get really bothersome. And so, with a little trepidation, I levered the DVD out of its case and put it into the player and pushed the play button. The result?

    In short, one of the greatest experiences I have ever had in watching films. Forget Shakespeare In Love and Saving Private Ryan, to my mind this film should have walked away with the Oscar for Best Picture, hands down. It is very rare that I do so, but straight after watching the film I was so moved that I had the need to watch the film again for the sheer enjoyment of it, immediately before sitting down to write this review. The cover blurb on this offering is one of those extremely rare instances where the person responsible was having an understatement day. "An extraordinary cinematic experience no one should miss" it says: I cannot do anything but wholeheartedly agree.

    Exactly where do you begin with the film? After all, this is an amazingly simple story, but one of immense power. Set in Italy in the immediate period before World War Two, Guido Orefice (Roberto Benigni) is an ordinary man - a waiter - with extraordinary gifts. Having somewhat of a devil-may-care approach to life, he approaches most things with an exuberant spirit, immense humour and wonderful imagination. Whilst on his way to his uncle's house, he meets the beautiful Dora (Nicoletta Braschi) as she quite literally falls into his arms. Over a succession of subsequent meetings, which crystallize from unexpected surprises into intended meetings, he gradually wins his princess away from the man to whom she is betrothed. We now jump forward to the latter part of World War Two, and Guido and Dora are now married and have a young son, Giosue (Giorgio Cantarini). Unfortunately, Guido is an Italian Jew and is rounded up with his young son and marched away to a Nazi death camp. Unable to contemplate life without her husband, Dora follows and insists that she be put on the same train and the family heads off to what should be certain death by gassing. Guido uses his extraordinary capacity for imagination to keep his family alive during the trying days prior to the liberation of the camp by American forces. Anything more than this is going to give far too much of the film away, and this is a film that needs none of my completely inadequate words to describe it.

    So, we have a wonderfully simple story, notable for the fact that it was written by (you guessed it) Roberto Benigni in collaboration with Vincenzo Cerami. Wonderfully simple stories usually require something extra special in the way of performances to really make them work, and that is what we get here. You can broadly forget the rest of the cast - this film is Roberto Benigni's in every way. His performance transcends any sort of language limitations: this is a film that demands to be watched in the original Italian and you do not need to have the English subtitles on to understand what is going on. The film presents its story from start to finish in every nuance of the performance of Roberto Benigni, and to a lesser extent that of his real-life wife Nicoletta Braschi. His performance exudes charm, humour, fear, love and just about every emotion that you can imagine in the most convincing fashion that I can recall in recent films. Accompanying the fabulous acting performance is some wonderful directing from the man himself, as magnificently evidenced by the engaging performance drawn out of young Giorgio Cantarini, and the superbly unforced naturalness of the film. The magnificence of the performances and the direction is complemented by a wonderful choice of locations, and some quite wonderful cinematography. I could go on, but suffice it to say that there is absolutely nothing to complain about this film at all. This is especially so considering that this probably did not have anywhere near the sort of budget that was expended on Shakespeare In Love and Saving Private Ryan.

    I would urge all of you, including those people like my sister who cannot watch foreign language films with subtitles, to go out and indulge in this DVD. Life Is Beautiful is a stunning film in every respect and it jumps right to the top of my list for the release of the year.

Video

    This magnificent transfer is presented in one of the best-looking 1.78:1 aspect ratio efforts I have seen in quite a while. Naturally, it is 16x9 enhanced. From the opening scenes this transfer just exudes quality, in both definition and clarity. Apart from a couple of momentary lapses, which may be the result of inherent minor lapses in the original print, there is a wonderful definition throughout this film. This is a gorgeously sharp transfer in general and I was particularly impressed by the definition during what were the darker periods of the film, notably in the death camp. The arrival of the train in the death camp at night is especially stunning in its definition, and you would be hard-pressed to find much better films than this. Shadow detail was uniformly high throughout and again there is no better example here than the scenes in the death camp. As for clarity, this is definitely the clearest transfer I have seen this year. There did not appear to be any hint of grain at all in the transfer and any suggestion of low level noise in the transfer would be bordering on a joke. There is simply nothing to detract from the film itself at all in this transfer as far as noise is concerned.

    If vibrant transfers are your fetish, then you will love this effort. Whilst obviously the bulk of the film is set in the depressing confines of the death camp where bright colours are absolutely non-existent, there is a stunning vibrancy to the greys on offer. Indeed, this is such an exquisite transfer as far as colour definition is concerned that just about every prisoner's uniform has a distinctiveness of colouring to it, so that they almost seem to exude a similar sort of uniqueness to that which is discernible in a herd of zebra. When the colours do have a chance to be bright, during the earlier parts of the film, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the way they have been handled, not even with the grotesquely fluorescent green of the poor horse (don't ask!). This is a beautifully rendered colourscape that exudes a richness and purity of tone that is rarely seen in films from the production line called Hollywood. There is obviously no hint of oversaturation at all, and little indication anywhere of colour bleed.

    There is absolutely no hint of any MPEG artefacts here at all, and the only real complaint that I have at all regarding the video transfer is that there are a few extremely minor and completely non-distracting hints at aliasing early on during the film - at least until the 53:29 mark. At that point, there is a little bit of noticeable aliasing in the window frames of the building that is the only thing that in any way slightly detracts from the transfer, which is a great shame as it is the only thing that denies this transfer absolute reference standard, since there is to my recollection nothing by way of film artefacts to detract from the transfer here.

    Even though subtitles are quite a rarity still on Roadshow Home Entertainment releases, they are handled very well indeed here and are very legible.

Audio

    There are two audio tracks on the DVD; the original language Italian Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack and the somewhat controversial English dubbed Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. I say controversial only because in the eyes of some the mere presence of this track is seen as a sacrilegious blasphemy upon the film. Having listened to the soundtrack, I have to say that there is nothing much wrong with the soundtrack per se, but it simply is not in the same league as the beautiful Italian soundtrack that really makes this film shine.

    In both soundtracks, the dialogue was always clear and very easy to understand, even in the most exuberant of Roberto Benigni's vocal escapades. Naturally the dubbed soundtrack suffers from the inherent sync problems of such soundtracks, but in this instance it does not appear to be as badly out of sync as one would expect! There was no suggestion of audio sync problems with the Italian soundtrack, although it has to be admitted that my Italian is so poor that I probably could not pick up if there was any minor sync problems.

    The original music score does not come from Roberto Benigni (probably one of the few things he did not do on this film), and rather is a superbly subtle effort from Nicola Piovani, that deservedly won the Oscar. There is a wonderful melody that runs throughout the film that hints at something sung by Andrea Boccelli and Sarah Brightman, and that is used to wonderful effect throughout the film. This is not a big, dynamic soundtrack and relies purely on subtlety to support the onscreen action. Having said that, you cannot say that this is a soundtrack that can be ignored, as you are always aware of the musical support throughout the film.

    The main feature of the Italian soundtrack is the nice presence of the vocal track, just a little forward in the mix but still quite natural. There is a quite nice subtlety in the front surround channel support, although not an awful lot in the rear channels. However, this is obviously a very dialogue-driven film and the lack of big rear channel support is not really noticed as you are engrossed in the film. The dubbed soundtrack is just a little less present in the vocal tracks and as a result is not quite so natural sounding. Both soundtracks offer nothing more than hints of bass support, which again suits the film well and makes the subtle use all the more welcome. The soundtracks are completely free of any distortion or other blemishes, and the Italian soundtrack in particular has a lovely bloom to the sound that really lets the vocals and music sing brightly in the overall mix. Overall, this is a quite wonderful, understated and subtle Italian soundtrack with some lovely presence to the vocals that overshadows the English dubbed soundtrack in every respect.

Menu

Theatrical Trailer (2:06)

Other Trailer

Biography - Cast

• Featurette - Making of Life Is Beautiful
• Academy Award television commercials

• 16x9 enhancement

    The video transfer is superb, let down by one minor lapse.

    The audio transfer is very good.

    The extras package is slightly disappointing.

    Just two things in closing, Roadshow Home Entertainment - please lose the appalling translucent plastic case that this DVD came in. It is an absolute shocker that really is very cheap looking, and was immediately replaced by a vastly superior Brackley case. There seems to be a general move towards the transparent Amaray case as a standard - why are you moving backwards to this awful effort? And the front cover banner stating "features exclusive to DVD" is in this instance perhaps just pushing things a little.
 

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Ian Morris (have a laugh, check out the bio)
10th June 2000