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I think this film is the closest to perfect I've ever seen. Benigni is simply brilliant as an actor and director, but what I most liked about this film is that the jews are portrayed as real people, and not just an amorphous mass of "victims" like they usually are (or always were before this film). Benigni said in an interview that he based the film on an Auschwitz survivor (a neighbour) he knew as a child, and who had made the stories funny so he didn't frighten the children. It was many years before Benigni realised the full horror of the neighbour's story.
Around 6 million jews and others were killed in the holocaust, and they were all kinds of people, including surely many who were comedians. What makes this such a beautiful film, and what led to the title is this, I think; that even in Auschwitz, even in the most horrendous, unimaginable conditions the man kept his spirit alive for sake of his son. Surely, that is beautiful.
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