GUEST POST BY RENA WANG
Current School: Harvard College
Interests: Public service, writing, trying new cuisines
Favorite cartoon: Peanuts
Favorite TV Shows: The Office, 90′s Nickelodeon shows, science fiction shows
Fun activity: Exploring other cultures
This review first ran on Sept. 7, 2010
One of my favorite movies is “Life is Beautiful” (or “La vita è bella”), starring Roberto Benigni. When I first watched it years ago, I thought the plot was absurd, especially since it seemed to deal lightly with such serious topics as WWII concentration camps. I was astounded at how a movie could so unabashedly leap from drama to romance to comedy to tragedy. In the years since, I’ve come to understand the film actually represented reality to the highest degree.
In this film, Benigni plays a happy-go-lucky young Jewish man in Italy named Guido. Guido has an indelible X-factor that transcends simple optimism—a combination of charisma, courage, and intense personal loyalty (think of a cunning Forrest Gump).
This quality helps him gain the love of Dora, a local teacher with whom he later has a son named Giosué.
As Guido settles into a seemingly comfortable life with his new family, the Nazis suddenly invade and take him and his family to a concentration camp.
At that point, the movie suddenly transforms from a romantic comedy to a suspenseful drama. Guido, in an attempt to placate and protect his five-year-old son, convinces his son that the camp is actually a complex game that needs to be played carefully. In fact, the lengths that Guido goes through to save his son can only be described as heroic.
“Life is Beautiful” takes its viewers to every stop on the emotional spectrum. This emotional and situational medley – like human life – has no clear genre. I have come to realize that this film’s combination of elation, sacrifice, and tragedy is only as absurd as reality itself.
Don’t be surprised if you’re stunned by the conclusion of the film, eagerly awaiting a pleasant ending. This uneasiness is what makes this film so valuable – the sacrifices are only as “dramatic” as the love and loyalty. This movie’s message is timeless: life goes on and the memory lives.
*** Thanks, Rena. Here is the trailer for the film, which won three Academy Awards:
Don Keylon
I have not seen “Life is Beautiful,” but I would also recommend the movie “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas,” which has yet a different spin on life during the holocaust. “Without including any of the gore and explicit violence seen in similar films—it reminds us about our global history of brutality.”
September 7th, 2010 8:49 am
Alan Watt
While the film does portray a father doing his best for his child, the facts get in the way. The reality was much different, from the reactions of his fellow inmates he shares quarters with to the German soldier ordering him down from the drain pipe (in reality, the soldier would have just shot and killed him). So, for me, it’s not so much a light touch being used to deal with heavy, serious subject matter, as, without using “poetic license”, it’s impossible to do with a subject such as the Holocaust. It’s just not something that poetic license should be applied to; it therefore becomes inaccurate.
September 7th, 2010 9:23 am