My (wrong) interpretation of the surreal first half ...

He's running around with his son from one attempt to the next trying to make people happy - the scenes are dreamlike and unrealistic (meeting his girl all the time, his boy sitting in a cabinet, ...) - I was totally convinced that he is already in the KZ with his son and he is trying to make people happy by storytelling and triggering memories - there is also at least one scene where he is serving food and he gets details wrong - this seemed to me like he was trying to figure out en passent what reality he hast to bring to life by using the feedback. Until it was shown how they enter a KZ and that one of those people was actually a German Nazi officer I was totally convinced of this interpretation and expected those phantasized depictions to fade into a realistic depiction of "reality" at some point.

Actually this perspective is still the only one that makes sense to me even though it conflicts with the story line at some point. And I am a bit surprised that everybody seems to interpret the first half only as a foolish slapstick.

I'm grateful I discovered this way to look at the movie thanks to LSD - probably I wouldn't have enjoyed the movie too much otherwise - but under these substances the movie touched me so severely like no other movie did so far - I was sobbing all the way through it and I think it is absolutely brilliant!

Several times I catched myself thinking (not having seen anything with or by Benigni) that this is the only intelligent Woody Allen movie :D