Pleasure Over Pain

Justin Migliaccio
Dr. Tejada
English 1102
12 March 2009

Pleasure over Pain

When making an argument, or take a side, people tend to lose a perspective of the other. In comparing international cinema many perspectives on many events can be seen that take place. My paper is going to run on the World War II medium. In my argument, I want to describe the Italian cinematic view on Fascism and Life using the two contemporary films: Life Is Beautiful and Mediterraneo. Both of these films are Italian, and give the audience the themes of Fascism and Life because they take place during World War II.

In the American cinema, the stories and cinematic elements describing World War II were of a gruesome element. Fascism became such an enemy in war films after WWII that the ideology behind Fascism depicted it as horror, oppression, Nazism. It was given such a tag that pretty much any cinematic approach, by any country’s film industry, was one to take the opposite side, and describe it through what their own country suffered by it and hack out the Fascist Germany that was. However, members of one country, who had close ties with Germany during WWII, did not take the same perspectives or sides as their other counterparts, but instead embraced the ideology that was behind the veil.

Italian cinema looked passed Fascism and embraced it into their community. Truly, it was a part of their community for some time during Benito Mussolini’s reign during WWII. And after all a majority of Italy’s populus took the Fascist route to side with Germany. In Italy’s contemporary cinema, the two films Life is Beautiful and Mediterraneo, take a more comedic and fictional approach toward Fascism. In Life Is Beautiful, the main character, Gudio, and his son who are of Jewish-Italian dissent, are sent to a concentration camp to work and labor. By watching the film and reading the reviews, Guido is a surprisingly odd character, who takes very comedic approaches to very gloomy, tough situations, “Even while giving vent to his natural propensity for comic mugging, Benigni brings surprising depth and poignancy to the desperate father trying to mask his own fear.” (Variety Life Is Beautiful). From the perspective of Guido, the fascism and politics that is taking place in his own country seems to be more of comedic relief to him than anything. This medium of relief, can be displayed by how the director wants Guido to act. In essence, the Italian director wants Guido to be comical about the fascist regime who has taken over his country and implemented the Holocaust situation that has occurred during WWII, “The father's gentle buffoonery and quick-witted fibs are perfectly suited to the child and also to the film's way of reducing the Holocaust to its essential absurdity.” (NY Times 1).





This convention of comedic relief is one view that Italian cinema seems to show about their country’s wrong doing in alliance with Germany during the war. Instead of the director conveying bloodshed, horror, anger and hatred like most other International films take on Fascism, the Fascist view of the Italian film is one to simply ignore these gruesome themes, and take their own stance to the matter, distancing themselves from the mistake their country’s government made to side with Germany, comedy. Take Mediterraneo for instance; it is a film about stranded Italian soldiers on an Island where from a very far view, are able to see battle and gun fire from the island. Throughout the film, the villagers who live on the island accept the soldiers into their homes, the soldiers become so encompassed into the villagers lives and forget about their duty in the war. “One night they see a terrible explosion on the horizon… the men lose all touch with the world outside.” (NY Times Mediterraneo). Although there are minor dramatic elements in the film, it clearly shows the director that he is not afraid to take an approach of what his own country wants to see and fights back the international take on fascism. So this is the kind of distance approach that contemporary Italian cinema is taking toward Fascism in relation to the rest of the world’s contemporary take on it.


With the comedic relief, comes the “Life” lesson, what is the Italian view on Life? When I was watching both Life Is Beautiful and Mediterraneo, the film juxtaposes between the comedic elements, social issues, and plot of film from these two films to the rest of the world. The Italian cinema truly has it’s on take on life, rather than depressing films that describe versions on people in horrible situations, Italian cinema takes a left, telling people that the fruits of “Life” should be the simple outer shell of it all, rather than picking to the core. Guido is a hotel servant, which he doesn’t make a lot of money, but see’s nothing of it, and continues himself past it, “While charmed by her clownish suitor and his comical ruses to keep popping up in her path… learning of the impending marriage as he waits tables at their official engagement reception.” (Variety). Rather than making himself stand short of possibilities, Guido stands high with his personality. Same kind of characteristics occur in Mediterraneo where the soldiers, instead of fighting in what they deem a meaningless war, take on suit with the villagers, “The pic is rich in affectionate new slants on old Italo emblems… give this pic much of its buoyancy.” (Variety Mediterraneo). It is possible that Italian film, social status or situation people are in, shows people can be so simple and pick apart life enjoyably with little they have. It this distancing method that I believe makes the Italian films so successful revealing the comedic and fruitful balance of life that Guido, the soldiers, and characters in both films take with them.



By showing the comedic relief to a ruthless way of government and torture, Fascism, and how the fruits of “Life” are right at your finger tips, these Italian movies display the Italian cinematic view on these subjects. This kind of view teaches us to be more mindful of our world, that what we see as such a serious matter, shouldn’t be serious at all. If there was any good way to describe how Italian cinema has created such a comparison of these subjects, it is that Italian cinema views our illusions in life as the fundamental approach to enjoying it, while the rest of the world cinema views our reality in life as its fundamental approach to enjoying it.