The Tiger and the Snow
| La tigre e la neve | |
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| Directed by | Roberto Benigni |
| Written by | Roberto Benigni Vincenzo Cerami |
| Starring | Roberto Benigni Jean Reno Nicoletta Braschi Emilia Fox |
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Release date
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Running time
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118 minutes |
| Country | Italy |
| Language |
Italian English Arabic |
La tigre e la neve (English: The Tiger and the Snow) is a 2005 Italian movie starring and directed by Roberto Benigni.
The film is a romantic comedy set in contemporary Rome and in occupied Baghdad during the Iraq War. The story, inspired by the fairy tale "Sleeping Beauty", features singer-songwriter Tom Waits as himself in recurring dream sequences, and a surprise ending. The opening scene is a celebration of love, with an abundance of poetic references mentioned in the closing credits.
Rome, March 2003. Attilio de Giovanni (Roberto Benigni), a comical but talented literature professor and the divorced father of two teenage girls, is hopelessly in love with Vittoria (Nicoletta Braschi, Benigni's wife in real life), a writer who is the subject of a recurring dream, featuring a surreal wedding ceremony with poetry verses in the background and the wife suddenly turning into a kangaroo. Attilio's strenuous courtship is unsuccessful, yet he does not lose hope, despite the fact that Vittoria obviously does not share the same feelings. She tells him that she will agree to marry him only when she sees a tiger walking on the snow.
Vittoria leaves to go to Iraq to write the biography of the poet Fuad (Jean Reno), a close friend of Attilio who is returning to his country after 18 years in exile in France. Vittoria is wounded during the Iraq War and Attilio manages to reach Baghdad with the intention of saving her life. He finds Vittoria in an Iraqi hospital lying in a coma; like thousands of Iraqis, she is in danger of dying from lack of medicine. Fuad directs Attilio to an old Iraqi pharmacist, who suggests ancient treatments that keep her alive. Attilio locates scuba gear (to provide oxygen) and even "a weapon of mass destruction" (a flyswatter), one example of the film's anti-war stance.
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