Life Is Beautiful

This simple-fable-like- story takes place in 1939, a time when Italy has fallen under the grip of Fascism and anti- Semitism – a time when some 8,000 Italian Jews of all ages andfrom all walks of life were removed from their long- lived homes and deported to concentration camps.

Life Is Beautiful For a time we do not know that Guido, an energetic country boy freshly moved to the big city is Jewish. He arrives in town in a runaway car with failed brakes and is mistaken for a visiting dignitary. There are hints of the impending conflict, but for the most part, the first half of the film is about a gentle and comic romance. Guido, a hotel waiter, begins to woo a beautiful school teacher named Dora.However, he has a problem, Dora is getting married to someone else.

Life Is Beautiful

So, he becomes the undeclared rival of her fiancé, the Fascist town clerk. Guido is an imaginative talker – to call him a liar would be a bit harsh, but he does spend most of his time spinning fanciful tales. Upon first meeting his lady love, Guido claims to be a prince who will soon be re-seeding the land on which she lives with wall-to-wall camels. His energetic non-stop talk often goes deep into night depriving his poet friend Ferruccio of sleep.

Life Is Beautiful

At one point, Guido shows up at the school where Dora teaches posing as a government inspector and delivers a wonderful lampooning of Nazi eugenics to her students demonstrating the excellence of his big ears and superb navel. His easygoing temper helps him to make friends with the German doctor who is a regular guest at the hotel and shares his love of riddles

Life Is Beautiful

All of this early material, the first long act of the movie, is comedy – much of it silent comedy involving the fate of a much- traveled hat that helps Guido to maintain his dignity. Eventually, Guido takes away his princess and the film’s second half takes a dramatic turn.

Life Is Beautiful

Several years pass off-screen. Guido and Dora are married, dote on their 5-year-old son Giosué (Giorgio Cantarini), and Guido maintains a small bookshop. The war now is in full swing and Guido, being a Jew, becomes a frequent target of harassment. One afternoon Dora returns home to find her husband and son are being shipped to a concentration camp. She begs to be placed on the train with her family, and gets her request.

Life Is Beautiful Unable to tell his young son the truth about their incarceration, Guido falls back on an imaginative lie. He tells that they are being sent to a special summer camp. If they obey all the rules, they can gather points. The first person in camp to amass 1,000 points wins a tank – not a toy tank but a real one, which Giosué can drive all over town. Guido acts as the translator for a German who is barking orders at the inmates, freely “translating” them into Italian designed to quiet his son’s fears. While father labors during the day, he literally hides his child from the camp guards explaining the rules of the game that have the boy crouching on a high sleeping platform and remaining absolutely still. Here, the film is straddling a precarious line, but it plow ahead like a seasoned tightrope walker without so much as a stumble

Life Is Beautiful The ending of the film has been criticized by many for being unrealistically happy for the story of the Holocaust. I would not agree with that. True, there is a sunny feeling about the last few minutes of the film, but it cannot be seen in isolation from the fact that Guido, the father, dies in order to save his son. Marching to be shot by a storm trooper, the father does his comic goose step for the last time and gives a wink to his hiding son. At the price of his life, the father fights for his son, forcing him to believe that all what is happening is only the game and the prize is on the way. And in fact, it is. In the next scene, a tank of liberating army rolls in and a soldier invites Giosué to take a ride.

Life Is Beautiful Passing through lines of survivors he notices his mother. As he is handed over to her, he exclaims with exuberant joy, “We won…a thousand points…we are taking the tank home...we won.” At the same time we hear the voice of the narrator. The same voice over that began the film identifies itself at the end; it is the voice of the grown up Giosué, Guido’s son. It was the survivor of the Holocaust, who has been telling his story.

Commentary of Life Is Beautiful Is a funny and touching film that works best if one doesn’t take it too seriously. This may be a problem since at least half of the film deals directly with the Holocaust by taking place in a concentration camp. Using this dismal historic setting as the backdrop for a fictional tragicomedy may not seem like a great idea, but it’s hard not to fall for the film’s charm and hopeful optimism that something positive can be extracted from the worst situation imaginable. It is much more effective on a general level dealing with basic concepts such as love and faith than on a more specific, detailed level that would be closer to historical reality.

Life Is Beautiful Carmen del Pino Jiménez