Based on four tragicomic short tales by great Italian writer Luigi Pirandello, Questa è la Vita (This is Life) is structured into four unrelated episodes.
In La Giara, an artisan paid to fix a jar ends up trapped inside it; the owner refuses to set him free. The episode is faithful to the source material, although performers don't do anything memorable with the characters. And without Pirandello's mordant prose, it isn't quite as effective.
Il Ventaglino is a blink-and-miss, forgettable bit that did not translate effectively to screen.
La Patente was the most promising of the bunch, as it features the great Totò as Chiarchiaro, a man who pretends to be a "iettatore" (someone who brings bad luck) to earn money for his family. Totò is charismatic as usual, but the episode commits an awful mistake: here, Chiarchiaro is really able to cast the "evil eye", which ruins the WHOLE POINT of the story and turns a poignant character study into grotesque, moronic slapstick. And shame to the censorship, which imposed a ridiculous conciliatory voice-over to make the ending less abrasive - a voice-over STILL PRESENT when the movie is transmitted nowadays, to boot.
Thankfully, Marsina Stretta is a notch above the rest: always brilliant Aldo Fabrizi - with his disgruntled face and hilarious body language - is a wedding guest who, tormented by his tight jacket, forgets his usual meek disposition and finds the determination to save the soon-to-be marriage.
6/10
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