Tu Mi Turbi (1983)

Four different comedy vignettes highlight the particular, idiosyncratic viewpoint of Roberto Benigni, a television comedian who originally wrote these four segments with Giuseppe Bertolucci for home TV. In the first sketch, the year is 5 A.D. and Benigni has to baby-sit for his old girlfriend Mary so she and her husband Joseph can have a night out. As Benigni is giving their child Jesus a bath, he muses philosophically about the nature of God and without a word, the little boy stands up on the bath water and leaves the outlines of his face on the bath towel. In the next segment, Benigni is in a quandary because his guardian angel, disillusioned with their relationship, has fallen in love with God and left him. In the third vignette, Benigni faces all-powerful banking bureaucrats in a bid for a loan to buy a house -- not an easy task because he is bully-proof, which alienates the chief fiscal bully, and the consequences are anything but a friendly loan. In the last sketch, Benigni is a guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and his antics (like talking into his sword on phone calls) drive his fellow guard to distraction. As the two verbally joust during the night, they bring up the topic of a certain fellow who knows if God exists or not. The subject of God is almost omnipresent in Benigni's comedic repertoire. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi