As we've seen throughout the decades, films not in the English language rarely crop up in the Best Picture line-up. In fact, the last time I reviewed one was Cries and Whispers which was nominated during the early 1970s and was the final non-English language film to feature in the category for over twenty years.
That was until the 1996 ceremony when a little film from Italy caught everybody's eye partly because it was being distributed by the powerful Miramax. Initially known simply by its English name The Postman, Il Postino later took on its original Italian moniker following the release of the atrocious Kevin Costner movie. Set in the early 1950s, Il Postino stars Massimo Troisi as Mario, a bored fisherman who lives on a small Italian island but wants more of a purpose in life. Exiled to the same island, world-renowned poet Pablo Neruda finds himself temporarily stranded for political reasons. These two very different men end up becoming acquaintances when Mario takes on the job of assistant postman with Neruda being his only client. As he begins to see him every day, Mario starts to get wrapped up in Neruda's poetry and tries to understand it more. Neruda gives him lessons on metaphors and later helps him to try and woo attractive waitress Beatrice. Eventually Mario persuades Beatrice to marry him much to the annoyance of her aunt who feels that he won't be able to support her niece. After acting as Mario's best man at his wedding, Neruda gets the call that he'll be able to return to Chile. Despite leaving the island, Neruda's views appear to have influenced Mario who now has strong views on the local political scene. However Mario becomes increasingly despondent that Neruda hasn't been in touch but is later inspired to record sounds of the island for his friend. The final scene of the film sees Neruda return to the island to learn of Mario's death at a political rally and collect the aforementioned recordings. Rather tragically Troisi, who postponed heart surgery to star in Il Postino, died one day after filming had wrapped.
Despite the tragic circumstances surrounding the film, Troisi still left a lasting impression and I feel his performance is one of the standout elements of the film. Troisi has a wide-eyed innocence about him which adds to the role of the initially simple Mario. Additionally Troisi is a brilliant physical actor which helps in the first scenes where Mario tries to woo Beatrice. Troisi is completely believable throughout the film and shares great chemistry with Philippe Noiret as Neruda. Noiret definitely holds his own here as he portrays Neruda as the elder statesman of the film's central relationship. Noiret conveys how Neruda softens as he spends more time with Mario and to me this friendship is at the core of the film. This is why I felt the film lost a lot of momentum after Neruda returned to Chile and left Mario and Beatrice. Whilst I enjoyed the scenes of Mario's tape recordings I don't feel the film quite maintained the level of quality that it had during the Neruda and Mario scenes. The film's cinematography was sumptuous and really captured the beauty of the two Italian islands on which Il Postino was shot. Meanwhile the brilliant score was rewarded with Il Postino's only Oscar of the five it was nominated. I really felt as if Troissi's performance should have won the Best Actor Oscar as to me it is almost faultless. What surprised me was how funny I found the film and it was definitely an enjoyable watch of a movie I'd not seen up to this point. Although it's odd that a foreign film was nominated to begin I can see why this light, entertaining drama appealed to a mainstream audience.
The same can be said for the other Italian film nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, Life is Beautiful, which appeared in the category three years later. While its themes are definitely a lot darker than Il Postino's I feel the performance from director and star Roberto Benigni is lot broader. Certainly the film's opening thirty minutes, in which Benigni's Guido attempts to woo schoolteacher Flora, sees the star get a little overly manic. Benigni's performance throughout the film sees him channel Hollywood's silent clowns and there's something Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton-esque about his turn in the film. I personally feel that Benigni spends too long building up the Flora and Guido romance and doesn't focus enough on their family life when they become parents to son Joshua. The parts of the film most will remember is when Jewish Guido and his family members are carted off to a concentration camp. Even though she isn't Jewish, Flora sacrifices herself to be close to her husband and son. In the concentration camp scenes Benigni obviously has to tone down Guido's physical comedy routine and I did enjoy the brief moments he portrayed his character's despair. To keep Joshua's spirits up, Guido pretends that they're partaking in a game to win a tank and all of the brutal punishments inflicted on them are only challenges to win points. It's an interesting narrative idea and one that works perfectly providing just the right balance between the horrors of the Holocaust and the innocence of Joshua. The film goes right through to the end of the war as Guido tries to find his princess before the Americans come to free everyone. Anybody who's seen the film knows of the emotional ending but I'm not here to spoil anything for you.
I had watched Life is Beautiful once before, as part of my film studies course, and at the time remember the film received quite an emotional reaction. Indeed I have to admit to still having a tear in my eye when hearing the voiceover by the actor plaing the older version of Joshua. What I hadn't remembered was how long the film took to actually build up to its main scenes at the concentration camp. On the one hand I can completely understand the need for character development but these opening scenes did seem to be a showcase for Benigni's comic mannerisms before the main plot of the film began. I think your enjoyment of Life is Beautiful is solely based on how much you like Benigni's performance and it did take me a while to warm to him. However I think the second half of the film showed him at his best and he delivered a calmer more reserved performance in which he balanced the tone of the story really well. Even though Benigni went on to win the Best Actor award for his role in the film I feel that, of the two, I preferred Troisi's more nuanced turn in The Postman. Praise must also go to Giorgio Cantarini as young Joshua, who captures all of the innocence of a young boy trapped in a world that he doesn't understand. It's in portraying this father and son relationship that Life is Beautiful really succeeds and I think that's why it appealed to a wider audience. Just like with Il Postino, Life is Beautiful was distributed by Miramax, who are known for influencing decisions at the Oscars. Unluckily for Benigni, another of Miramax's horses won the race for the Gold that year but at the same time I think he was satisfied enough with his own individual achievement. While I enjoyed the story of Life is Beautiful, I felt the first half of the film was too long and didn't really add much to my understanding of the characters. Ultimately Life is Beautiful provided an emotional story about a father and son which was told well and had some very realistic qualities throughout.
Next time we focus on two films that really struck a chord with the Academy.
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