Italian comedian Roberto Benigni made this amazingly touching fable about a Jewish father and his young son, sent to a concentration camp during World War II. It is a fable and not a meditation of the horrors of the holocaust. It's about how everyone has gifts, no matter how seemingly useless, that others can learn from and benefit from. Benigni plays a character whose gift is one of comedy. But how could that help him teach his son how to survive and cope with the horrors of Nazi oppression?

This is one of the most bittersweet films I have ever seen. Benigni's use of his comic gifts are creative and often funny, but we know well the truth of things and what terrible distress he keeps inside.