The age of innocence? Child narratives and Italian Holocaust films

Abstract

This article critically assesses the use of children as narrators in two recent Italian Holocaust films: Roberto Benigni'sLa Vita é Bella(1997) and Ettore Scola'sConcorrenza Sleale(2001). The analysis places the films and their choice of narrator in the context of the child in European Holocaust film and argues that the child's perspective, often used to qualify the actions of adult characters and cast a questioning or even accusatory gaze on them, is used in these Italian films to perform the opposite function. Focusing on cinema as a site of memory and as a site of emotions, the article suggests that Italian filmmakers use children to infantilise the audience, induce pity rather than reflection, and discuss Italy's role in the Holocaust while reassuring audiences of the life-affirming, democratic and humanitarian values of post-war Italians. This political and historiographical use of the child's emotions not only reinforces the need to insist on the revision of thebrava gentemyth, but also invites a thorough reconsideration of the complexity of the relationship between the historical film and the emotions.