On historical value

Rating: Null/10 (4 February 2018)

La vita è bella depicted encampment through the eyes of a child, whose interpretations of his experience were guided by his father. The ending of the film implies that the central character, Joshua, grew up and is now sharing his and his parents' ordeal during World War II. I am not entirely convinced that a child can mature and reevaluate his/her experiences with an adult mentality, yet retrieve their interpretation of the experience as it occurred. If possible, this would be extraordinarily rare. For the sake of the film, I will concede.
Overall, the film masks the crimes of the holocaust with the innocent perspective of a child. In many ways, it is easier to understand the game Guido, Jushua's father, creates for his son than to comprehend the crimes of the Nazis during the Holocaust.
The cinematography of the film was centered on character development. Guido is presented as a love-struck comedian, who always seems to find his way in and out of trouble. This skill proves to be useful to him in camp life when he needed to find ways to protect Joshua and communicate with his wife Dora.
Historically, some plot elements of the film were inaccurate. For instance, the legal marriage between Dora and Guido would have been prevented by anti-Semitic legislation. Furthermore, Guido would not have been tattooed because he was not interned at Auschwitz. Other plot aspects of the film are historically accurate. For instance, the liquidation of camp personnel and the high murder rate occurred as the war was ending. While the plot of the film needed to be historically ambiguous at times for the storyline to progress, the ending of the film is misleading because it depicted the end of war as the solution. This misstep could have been resolved by extending the film.