SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Better Late Then Never

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Marco Ferreri, during this era, made several films that had highly ambiguous endings, where optimism and pessimism were both raised to great heights and made barely distinguishable one from another. Previously he has made 'Ciao Maschio' (Bye-Bye Monkey) which left Jane Fonda sitting on the beach with a new baby looking at the ruins of her life.Here Ferreri is in less iconoclastic mood, but still the ironies pile up to a heart-stopping finale. What this film asks is the agonising question 'Do we, by educating children, remove from them that which makes them wonderful?' Of course, there is more than that, but, when push comes to shove, that is what the film is about.There may be a more Jungian film, but I don't know of it. Here we have 'liberal' primary school teacher Roberto (Bengini) on a collision course with the 'authorities'. We have a bunch of, possibly autistic, children and we have the wondrous mother earth of Dominique Laffin (Isabella), who, as far as I am concerned was the greatest screen siren since Marilyn Monroe. (How sad that she died before the world recognised her beauty and talent.) As Roberto and Isabella coalesce, procreate and 'rescue' these damaged little souls, Ferreri asks some huge questions about existence, evolution and our place in the universe. In the final shot, as Roberto carries his loved but irreparably damaged charge into the unforgiving sea, we see this tragic drama through the eyes of a caged frog. There are few films that I think I can't really get my head around, but this is certainly one of them!

I give this movie a ONE, for it is truly an awful movie. Sound track of the DVD is so bad, it actually hurts my ear. But the vision, no matter how disjointed, does show something really fancy in the Italian society. I will not go into detail what actually was so shocking , but the various incidents are absolutely abnormal. So for the kink value, i give it one.Otherwise, the video, photography, acting of the adults actors /actresses are simply substandard, a practical jock to people who love foreign movies.Roberto, the main character, has full spectrum of emotions but exaggerated to the point of being unbelievable.however, the children in the movie are mostly 3/4 years old, and they are genuine and the movie provides glimpse of the Italian life..

one of the more controlled performance of Roberto Benigni, it worth alone, but the movie has its value also. It was sometime sweet, other bitter, if you have let a child in your soul I believe he/she would appreciate this strange mode to look at the reality, at a world sometimes too difficult to be explained or to be completely happy with. Maybe it's easier for an Italian to fully appreciate every moment and scene of this intense movie, but I strongly suggest it because Ferreri+Benigni is a couple that could happen to see only once. And maybe you would re-analyze all their productions, especially the other works of Marco Ferreri, usually more direct and bitter.Enjoy

Awful! Absolutely awful! No plot, no point, no end. It looks like the director turned the camera on and then the whole crew went to lunch. Every day. I'm trying to GIVE this video away but no one will take it. I'm giving it a 2 instead of a 1 because I like Benigni. Roger, I'm going to have to say thumbs down on this one.