Benigni’s “La Tigre e la Neve”- The Tiger and the Snow

As much as the critics loved Roberto Benigni’s 1993 “La Vita è Bella” (Life is Beautiful), that’s how much they hated his 2005 “La Tigre e La Neve” (The TIger and the Snow). I don’t get it. In both Benigni plays the same frenetic clown in similar tragic (and somewhat historically inaccurate) scenarios. In both, the message is clear – Love trancends war and reveals heroes in places that may have seemed unlikely. Why is it genius in one movie and insulting in the other? In La Tigre e La Neve, like in La Vita è Bella, Benigni protects someone that he loves against harsh obstacles, and he does it in a light hearted and yet unwavering way.

I don’t think you can have it both ways – either La Vita è Bella isn’t as good as everybody thought it was or La Tigre e La Neve isn’t as bad.

In La Tigre e La Neve Benigni plays Attillo, a poet and college professor who follows the love of his life, Vittoria ( played by his real life wife Nicoletta Braschi ) to Iraq when he finds out that’s she’s been badly injured there. War is raging all around the hospital and there are no supplies – the doctor tells Attillo that it’s likely she’ll die without the medicines and treatments that she needs, so Attillo stops at nothing to get those things.

Critics said that it wasn’t funny and that they didn’t like Benigni’s politics. But I don’t think that it had much to do with politics and I don’t think he intended us to be rolling in the aisles. At the risk of making this seem overly simplistic, La Tigre e La Neve is about love. It’s about the lengths we’ll go to, the battles we’ll wage for people that are important to us. TV Guide critic Ken Fox said that the only thing that comes across as at all sincere is his love for Vittoria, “And really, who cares?” he asks.

Who cares? That’s a pretty weird question. Who cares if Mr.Darcy loved Elizabeth – If Heathcliff loved Catherine. We care because we care about love in love stories; isn’t that what you’re supposed to care about in a love story?

You either like Benigni’s slapstick, bittersweet comedy or you don’t, and if you liked it in La Vita è Bella I don’t know why you wouldn’t in La Tigre e La Neve. I really loved the parts in Iraq as he did everything to keep comatose Vittoria alive, all the while joking with her, reassuring her, and begging the doctor to tell him what else he could do.And every time he’d get in trouble with American troups he’d holler over and over, “I’m Italian! I’m Italian!” – In other words, “This is not my fight – I have other things to worry about.”

Roberto Benigni is Roberto Benigni. Take him or leave him.

Rent it from Netflix

In Attillo’s reoccurring dream Tom Waites has a great cameo appearance playing and singing “You Can Never Hold Back Spring”. Jean Reno plays Iraqi poet Fuad.