Begnini is walking/dancing/playing (whatever you want to call it ;o) ) on a very fine/thin line here. But he knows how to handle this romance/comedy/drama. Like he did with his previous Oscar winning picture!

The performances are great, the situations are funny and dramatic or even sad. But you're always with the characters. There is one moment (Begnini is with Reno together in this scene) that doesn't feel right, but other than that, the movie flows. And while all hell breaks loose. you're tied to the story of a few characters ... waiting to see what is going to happen ... A great movie, with big feelings! :o)

Well, yesterday night I went to see the ultra-highly anticipated new Benigni's movie. La Tigre e La Neve is nice...just nice, not more. Shot with a very big budget and some co-stars, Tom Waits that plays the small role of a singer and a very good Jean Reno that speaks Italian all movie long, La Tigre e La Neve has got too many limits, in the screen writing and in the acting. The story is too superficial, love, poetry, trying to take people to commotion...but I found no commotion, not a huge of feelings, only good acting from the star, even if he's so far from his past masterworks, and some funny moments. Nicola Piovani's music is boring and boring, but the song written and played by Tom Waits is OK. The worst thing in the movie, as usual, is Nicoletta Braschi. Why does she keep trying to act? Something else to do in life? No? She's Benigni's wife, and that's the only reason I can find for her embarrassing presence in EVERY MOVIE he releases.Of course, this movie is going to become a blockbuster here in Italy and I think it could do very well in other territories. But please, don't call it a masterpiece!!!!! It's just a nice movie...better than the megalomaniac Pinocchio but nothing more.

A pleasant, perhaps very pleasant, two hours spent watching Benigni do his stuff in Italy and Iraq, though I have yet to decide if I really wanted to see another film about him chasing the woman of his dreams, especially as I can never decide if said actress is limited in her acting ability, or if she finds herself constricted by the rather reductive roles she finds herself interpreting. That said, Reno is excellent as the Iraqi poet in exile in France, firstly as a thought-provoking contrast to Benigni's over-the-top enthusiasm, and secondly because he is the politics that are touted when they describe the film as political. The poet's reaction to his return to his native land after many years in exile is an understated, but strongly felt, message. Of course there is also a message, and many jibes, in the humor of Benigni... about young American soldiers in Iraq, the chaos that still reigns in the country after the fall of the old guard and the naivety with which westerners view both culture and war. Great to see Tom Waits on screen again, though with an uncharacteristically romantic song, and for those who are interested, Waits does play 'the musician' and not a speaking role. The jury's out on how convincing the parent-child relationship was, Benigni seemed to be speaking to two small children, not teenagers. And Fox, though a good actress, played a rather mono-dimensional love interest here. I had the pleasant surprise of coming across them making this film while I was passing through Fiumicino airport earlier in the year- the humor that draws people into the cinema halls is even more vibrant live.