The Tiger and the Snow
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| La tigre e la neve | |
|---|---|
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| Directed by | Roberto Benigni |
| Written by | Roberto Benigni & Vincenzo Cerami |
| Starring | Roberto Benigni: Attilio de Giovanni Jean Reno: Fuad Nicoletta Braschi: Vittoria Emilia Fox: Nancy Giuseppe Battiston: Ermanno Tom Waits: himself Andrea Renzi: Doctor Guazzelli Gianfranco Varetto: attorney Scuotilancia Chiara Pirri: Emilia Anna Pirri: Rosa |
| Release date(s) | 2005 |
| Running time | 118 min. |
| Country | Italy |
| Language | Italian |
| IMDb profile | |
La tigre e la neve (English: The Tiger and the Snow) is a 2005 Italian movie starring and directed by Roberto Benigni.
The film is a romantic comedy set in contemporary Rome and in occupied Baghdad during the Iraq War. The story is told as a double-faced dream with a surprise ending, inspired by the tale of "Sleeping Beauty". The memorable initial scene moves the audience as a celebration of love, man's greatest strength, with an abundance of poetic references mentioned in the closing credits.
Rome, March 2003. Attilio de Giovanni (Roberto Benigni), a comical but talented literature professor and the divorced father of two teenage girls, is hopelessly in love with Vittoria (Nicoletta Braschi, Benigni's wife in real life), a writer who is the subject of a recurring dream, featuring a surreal wedding ceremony with poetry verses in the background. Attilio's strenuous courtship is, however, unsuccessful and he has to face the fact that Vittoria does not share the same feelings.
Vittoria leaves to go to Iraq to write the biography of the poet Fuad (Jean Reno), a close friend of Attilio who is returning to his country after 18 years in exile in France. Vittoria is wounded during the Iraq War and Attilio manages to reach Baghdad with the intention of saving her life. He finds Vittoria in an Iraqi hospital lying in a coma; like thousands of Iraqis, she is in danger of dying from lack of medicine. Fuad directs Attilio to an old Iraqi pharmacist, who suggests ancient treatments that keep her alive. Attilio then runs the risk of going to the Italian Red Cross HQ in Iraq, obtains medical supplies by posing as a doctor, then brings medicines back to Bagdad. The medical supplies enable Vittoria to make a complete recoverry, but when Attilio goes to Fuad's house to tell him abou this triumph over adversity, he finds that Fuad has hanged himself; the film does not make clear why Fuad committed suicide. Just before Vittoria emerges from her coma, Attilio is captured by the American army and is mistaken for an Iraqi insurgent.
[edit] Connections to La Vita e bella
Several references to Life Is Beautiful are scattered throughout the film. First and foremost is the Benigni-Braschi pairing (real life husband and wife). The first half of the film deals with Benigni's character courting Braschi's, and the second part has them separated by a war. Benigni is even taken prisoner at one point. Benigni's attempts at saving his wife are remiscient of his scenes cheering up his son at the concentration camp. Both movies end with an intervention by the allied forces. Benigni's movie Pinnochio is also alluded, particularly Braschi's character, the Blue Fairy: at one point her husband asks her to wear a blue robe, to which she consents. Later on her husband straps blue goggles to her eyes, remarking how beautiful the color blue contrasts her skin.
[edit] Trivia
- The dream scenes feature Tom Waits (who had starred with Benigni in the movie Down by Law) singing his composition, the heart-breaking ballad You Can Never Hold Back Spring and accompanying himself at the piano.
- The Iraqi scenes were shot in Tunisia.
- The name of the protagonist is a reference to the Italian poet Attilio Bertolucci.
- The dream scenes depict, thanks to computer graphics, a number of poets: Eugenio Montale, Jorge Luis Borges, Marguerite Yourcenar, and Giuseppe Ungaretti.
- Near the end of the film, a number of circus animals wander through the streets of a Rome residential neighborhood. One of these animals is a splendid tiger which momentarily blocks the street on which Vittoria is driving. It is late spring and the cottonwood trees are shedding, which resembles snow. Thus the title of the film.
