The Tiger and the Snow

A poet teaching in Rome learns that the woman he has loved for years has been badly injured in Baghdad and looks for a way into the city in the middle of the war. The hospital has no medicine and no equipment. The film carries comedy into an occupied city, and that choice is both its idea and its largest problem: his effort is touching while the war behind it stays largely decorative. The narrative gives Iraqi characters almost no room. Roberto Benigni wrote, directed and starred, with Nicoletta Braschi and Jean Reno in the cast. Before watching: on release it was sharply criticised for using a war as ground for romantic comedy. It attempts a structure similar to Benigni's earlier film without receiving the same reception.