The Tiger and the Snow (2005)

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Roberto Benigni follows up his Oscar winning Life is Beautiful with another whimsical romantic comedy. He is Attilio, a college professor, divorced, with two teenage daughters. He is hopelessly in love with Vittorio(Nicoletta Braschi), a writer who travels to Iraq to write a book about Fuad, a poet in exile who is also a friend of Attilio. It is during the Iraqi war and Vittoria is seriously wounded and in a coma. Attilio goes to Baghdad to save the love of his life by posing as a doctor to obtain medicine from the Italian Red Cross. He succeeds and checks back with Fuad with a very sad scene.The American military pick up Attilio, mistakenly believing him to be a terrorist, a funny and comically absurd part of the story.The ending is somewhat of a Hollywood kind of finish to The Tiger and the Snow a passable diversion; but not at the level of Life is Beautiful. One additional plus is Tom Waits singing and playing a piano at a surreal wedding scene.

Good news: Roberto Benigni is one of the most gifted comics in the world today. Not so good news: His results on screen have been wildly uneven. Watching "Life is Beautiful" and then "Pinochio" back to back should give one proof of this claim.Fortunately, "The Tiger and the Snow" is one of his better efforts and perfectly demonstrates what places Benigni above most all of his contemporaries. He is not just a buffoon; he has a heart."Life is Beautiful" was criticized by many as being unrealistic and I'm certain "The Tiger and the Snow" is receiving similar complaints. These critics miss the point. The situations Benigni puts himself into may be absurd, but the emotions are not. "Life" was about a father's love for his son and how he would do absolutely anything to protect that son. "Tiger" is about one man's love for one woman.This is a selfless love which expects nothing in return. Whether she reciprocates or not is irrelevant. He loves her and will do absolutely anything for her, even follow her into a hell on Earth.After watching "The Tiger and the Snow" I immediately logged onto the IMDb website to see what other Benigni movies I have missed somewhere along the way. I have come to the conclusion that any Benigni movie, even his less successful ones, are well worth seeing.

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)

The Tiger and the Snow is a beautiful romantic movie, and it opened quite perfectly with an awesome ballad "You Can Never Hold Back Spring", performed by Tom Waits himself. Written and directed by Italian Roberto Benigni (famed for the wonderful LIfe is Beautiful), he also stars as the lead Attilio de Giovanni, a lovestruck poet who falls for a woman in his recurring dreams.Only of course, to wake up each time he dreams of them at the alter, and when she is about to declare her undying love for him, punctuated with promises of hot sex. Yes, you read that right. But I digress. In reality, he's an absent minded poetry professor who always forgets where he parks his car. But despite his quirky looks and demeanor (are Benigni's characters always like that I wonder), imagine the pandemonium within him when he finally meets the woman in his dreams, Vittoria (the object of his obsession played by wife in real life Nicoletta Braschi), an acquaintance of fellow writer Fuad (Jean Reno).Meeting in the dreams, and meeting for real can hardly be any different, and his infatuation with and love for Vittoria goes unrequited. Until of course we examine through to the rest of the movie, how unconditional and large this love for her is, when he takes it upon himself to journey to and through war-strife Iraq to save her from injury, through hell and high water, in dogged pursuit of elements that can save the love of his life.Although infused with bits of comedy now and then, the movie takes a long hard look at how much one will do for someone else whom you love deeply. It might be a case of "nothing is impossible", given the will and the affection. But what if you know that what you're doing will likely to be unnoticed, or unappreciated, or unrequited. Then what? Hence the power of unconditional love. Truly very rare indeed. Should you feel, as the movie progresses, that certain bits seemed a little out of place, my advice is to persevere until the end, where a sleight of hand twist is introduced, and given the 20/20 hindsight, you'll begin to ponder, and understand this love a little more.It's bittersweet, and with moments that might touch you. But alas, this is no Life is Beautiful, and although it has its moments with the beautiful make belief cinematographic elements in the end, it somehow lacked that extra bit of emotional depth to truly move an audience.Oh, and that fellow blonde teacher, now she's hot!