La vita è bella

Plot synopsis:
In 1939 in the Kingdom of Italy, Guido Orefice is a young Jewish man who arrives to work in the city where his uncle Eliseo operates a restaurant. Guido is comical and sharp and falls in love with a girl named Dora. Later, he sees her again in the city where she is a teacher and set to be engaged to a rich but arrogant man, a local government official with whom Guido has regular run-ins. Guido sets up many "coincidental" incidents to show his interest in Dora. Finally Dora sees Guido's affection and promise and gives in against her better judgement. He steals her from her engagement party on a horse, humiliating her fiancé and mother. They are later married and have a son, Giosuè and own a book store.
When World War II breaks out, Guido, his uncle and Giosuè are seized on Giosuè's birthday. They and many other Jews are forced onto a train and taken to a concentration camp. After confronting a guard about her husband and son and being told there is no mistake, Dora volunteers to get on the train in order to be close to her family. However, as men and women are separated in the camp, Dora and Guido never see each other during the internment. Guido pulls off stunts, such as using the camp's loudspeaker to send messages—symbolic or literal—to Dora to assure her that he and their son are safe. Eliseo is executed in a gas chamber shortly after their arrival. Giosuè barely avoids being gassed himself as he hates to take baths and showers and did not follow the other children when they had been ordered to enter the gas chambers.
In the camp, Guido hides their true situation from his son. Guido explains to Giosuè that the camp is a complicated game in which he must perform the tasks Guido gives him. Each of the tasks will earn them points and whoever gets to one thousand points first will win a tank. He tells him that if he cries, complains that he wants his mother, or says that he is hungry, he will lose points, while quiet boys who hide from the camp guards earn extra points. Giosuè is at times reluctant to go along with the game, but Guido convinces him each time to continue.
Guido maintains this story right until the end when, in the chaos of shutting down the camp as the Allied forces approach, he tells his son to stay in a box until everybody has left, this being the final competition before the tank is his. Guido goes to find Dora, but he is caught by a German soldier. An officer makes the decision to execute Guido, who is led off by the soldier. While he is walking to his death, Guido passes by Giosuè one last time, still in character and playing the game. He winks at Giosuè and Giosuè winks back as Guido is led away to be shot. The next morning, Giosuè emerges from the sweat-box, just as a U.S. Army unit led by a Sherman tank arrives and the camp is liberated. The prisoners travel to safety, accompanied by the Americans. Giosuè soon spots Dora in the procession leaving the camp and are reunited. Later, as a man, Giosuè realizes his father's story of sacrifice for his family.

Tags: comedy, whimsical, cute, melodrama, romantic, entertaining, sentimental

Review:
The movie showed the cruelty of life and yet managed to shed some light and insight into the beauty of love and life in general.I urge anyone who has not seen La Vita è bella to go out there and watch it.
I feel sorry for people who refuse to watch a movie like Life Is Beautiful just because it is a foreign film.
The way he ties together little strand in the film to create comedy elements shows a great writing ability, and a mastery of timing when it comes to their execution on screen.
Various incidents related to the rise of anti-semitism and fascism in Italy show that there are sinister forces at work which come to the fore in the second segment.Guido (Benigni) moves events on from Tuscany in 1939 to the last year of the war in a concentration camp.
Comic moments are still present, that involving Guido's translation of the rules of the camp is particularly notable, but it becomes somewhat more difficult to laugh when we consider the gravity of what is going on.The emphasis begins shifts, and we realise that this is a film about human spirit above all else.
However, this film avoids the tendency of Hollywood to go far over the top in emotional and credibility terms.Benigni shines like a lantern throughout the picture, showing that he is a talent, not only in comedy terms, that far outshines his peers.
I've also seen people review this movie and say that it made light of the Holocaust, which was of course a dark point in history.
'Life is beautiful' as the name goes is about a Jewish man, who falls in love with a non-Jewish lady, marries her, has a kid and who is then taken as a prisoner in a concentration camp along with his wife and kid.
Life Is Beautiful takes the premise that love and hope can survive the most trying of conditions, in this case a Nazi concentration camp.
It concerns upon Guido (Roberto Benigni, a magnificent rubber-faced funny man), a Jewish man who has a wonderful romance with the help of his humour, but must use that same quality to protect his son in a Nazi death camp .
Guido fabricates an elaborated game to convince his child that the whole ordeal is an endurance proof to be won with prizes forthcoming , as it turns out to be a special contest to win a tank.This is a story about love , war and sacrifice , well starred and directed by Roberto Benigni who develops a fire-line between comedy and tragedy .
Furthermore , it won Academy Award to Foreign film and of course to Benigni ; Roberto Benigni's Oscar for best actor marked only the second time that an actor had directed himself in an Academy Award winning performance , the other was Laurence Olivier for Hamlet .
There are a small handful of reviewers who are lambasting this film , crying phrases like "unrealistic and contrived" , "emotionally manipulative" and most risibly "an insult to the memory of the victims of the holocaust".Id like to address such interpretations.In the latter day audiences search for films bereft of cliché, derivativeness and lack of independence there seems to be a counterintuitive rationale that if a film cannot be explicated and stand up to analysis from every myriad aspect of possible critique, then it lacks worth or merit , taken as a piece of work in its own right.It should be suggested that the intent of the film is so clear,the aims of the film so evidently manifest, that to brand the film unrealistic and then carp on with minor details regarding obvious inconsistencies, is to not be able to see the film for what it very plainly proclaims itself to be.This film NEVER tries to be realistic in the modern sense of film critique, this film freely admits to being contrived, this film unashamedly focuses on the characters at the expense of portraying an historically accurate reality.For the whining reviewers to not see this, is either an example of disingenuous folly or plain hard-heartedness.The film is driven by ideals, of romance and of selflessness.This film clearly asks the watcher to suspend belief, to enter into its fantasy, to embrace the human emotion as elucidated through the characters.Not only is this film NOT an insult to anybody who has ever been persecuted (Jew,Chilean,African,Russian,Japanese,Chinese,Cambodian - the list of persecution goes on), rather it heightens empathy for such people in this plight ,through the use of poignancy.Its intent is NEVER to trivialise such.Yes the uniforms aren't dirty enough , yes Guido takes ridiculous risks,yes the likelihood that the German guards knew some Italian are apparent but the question is - given the context of the presentation - do those niggling details matter ?
Surely the film is engaging the viewer on an emotive level,evoking empathy for the individual case,for the desperation that sees a father moved to unthinkable extremes in an attempt to prolong the life of his son.Thus - surely , Guido's actions should not and never were intended to be 'realistic' but rather he is - to our despairing eyes ,simply pathetic ie he is evoking pity.How any discerning fair minded person could honestly and objectively brand this film as disrespectful and hateful because of comedic elements, is missing the point by oceans.This film is about the individual circumstance and thus the slapstick and ingenious way we are drawn into knowing the characters and the way we are immersed in the burgeoning love story of the small boys' parents, necessitates the audience to empathise,to engage,to feel.The by-play between father and son is to look at innocence personified,the bitter sweet forgoing of self in a seemingly doomed essay at escaping the impending inevitable spiral into oblivion.I think Life is Beautiful is an important work that might demand a rethinking of priorities by hard hearted critiques , who may have to shed that veneer of bloody-minded nitpicking and, to wit, see the forest for the trees.Of course the film is flawed,what film attempting such a tight balancing act between comedy and poignancy isn't?
(The movie numbers a grand total of one effective dramatic moment, which is Benigni's artfully handled last scene.)The lowest point in recent Academy Awards history is when Roberto Benigni won best actor for this film (he was up against Nick Nolte, Ian McKellen, Edward Norton and Tom Hanks, all in career-best performances, for god's sake!).If you feel such a strong need to be manipulated that you don't care that the guy doing the manipulating is a shallow egotist, then this movie will suit you just fine..
Admitively, I'm not a big fan of Benigni and I don't consider his kind of humour as even remotely funny, but what makes this exercise such a truly unbearable experience is that good old Roberto chooses the Holocaust of all things as a gloomy backdrop to make himself shine all the more.Its always a big risk if the same person directs, writes and plays the lead and to my knowledge only Charlie Chaplin, Orson Welles, Vincent Gallo and Woddy Allen can get away with it.
What makes it all the more annoying is, that most of the people fall for it, as was evident in the cinema when I watched the film.So in order to make himself look good he writes a script that places himself in the middle of some very mean and nasty Nazis.
For example the weird habit of swapping hats with this other person at any possible occasion will serve its purpose later on in the film :) I liked this intelligent and highly entertaining way of bonding the story together.
Credit must also be given to its shameless sentimentality, bad jokes, shoddy plot, and the flagrant narcissism of its "creators".And to my fellow reviewers who maintain that this is not a film about the Holocaust but rather the importance of familial love, I should like to say two things:  One, you're confusing the film's theme with its subject, and two, if Benigni didn't want to make a movie about the Holocaust then perhaps he shouldn't have SITUATED HIS STORY IN A NAZI CONCENTRATION CAMP!!.
This movie is the most banal and manipulative sort of crowd pleaser, the sort that assumes the crowd is composed entirely of idiots, but because it nominally concerns the holocaust otherwise intelligent people are unwilling to call the movies cynical little game for what it is, fearing the -"What you didn't like 'Life is Beautiful?!'  No don't say anything else you don't have a soul," or the more common, "Well go back to your Jerry Bruckheimer movies."  Well in all honesty that's an insult to Mr. Bruckheimer.
Everyone chalks in "Life is Beautiful" as their art movie of the month and ignores better movies on the holocaust like "The Ogre," "Invincible," or "Heimat.".
it is the best film that I have seen so far and i like to see it more and more.as matter of fact life is beautiful and we should know it is worthy and we should try for the best life.in my opinion the actor , actress and the child are the best and fantastic.
The realism of the movie is not its strong point, but then again it is not supposed to be; this helps in bringing the audiences to a state of mind away from reality, focusing on the feelings generated by forgetting about all external events and developments of the war.
The realism of the movie is not its strong point, but then again it is not supposed to be; this helps in bringing the audiences to a state of mind away from reality, focusing on the feelings generated by forgetting about all external events and developments of the war.
Life is really beautiful as you watch Guido's relentless efforts to make a lovely exciting experience of the concentration camp to his son.
Life is really beautiful as you watch Guido's relentless efforts to make a lovely exciting experience of the concentration camp to his son.
Strangely enough, less than a year later, Benigni was directing his own Holocaust comedy movie!
In "Life Is Beautiful," however, Roberto Benigni's character Guido is Jewish only because the film announces that he is.
As time goes on and the Holocaust becomes a thing of history, and as less survivors are alive to remember the travesty that mankind let occur, Benigni is being praised for making a film that DOES trivialize some very serious subject matter.
I think maybe people like to hear themselves say aloud that they loved a movie with subtitles..
This movie asks us to laugh at the events transpiring on screen, but not to feel or understand any of the horrors.Benigni would have done his film a lot of good had he given us more of a feeling of how the people's lives were in terror.
Instead, he merely laughs everything off, giving us the feeling that even he's not taking his subject matter too seriously.So, in the end we are left with a movie that trivializes the Holocaust - and people should be ashamed that they think so highly of it..
Not only is it appallingly badly directed and boring; not only is the humor and so-called acting amateurish at best; this film is trying to make some points about the Holocaust that are utter lies!Anyone with even a minimal understanding of the Holocaust would have to first of all discount ANY movie which purports to make the subject into a comedy, of all things.
If you want to see a quality comedy about the holocaust, try Radu Mihaileanu's (a romanian director) 'Train of Life'('Train de Vie'), which is some million times better(it was written before Benigni's film(and filmed before, I think), and the script was read by Benigni's producer, who should have produced but didn't, and might as well have 'inspired' Benigni, if you see what I mean.
I saw this "thing" (it doesn't deserve to be called a film) when it was released and I was absolutely dumbstruck at the favorable reaction it received; I continued to be amazed when it actually was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, and actually won Oscars for Best Foreign Language Film and Best Actor for Benigni.This movie sounds only wrong notes from beginning to end.
Perhaps the Holocaust has become too far removed in history to allow modern audiences (especially American ones) to realize that it has been wildly mythologized and horribly distorted in this trash.Those who "just loved" this movie -- as well as the members of the Academy who nominated it for Best Picture, etc.
Sorry, most people seem to like this movie but I thought the idea of fantasy somehow making the holocaust more bearable to be offensive.
If you think "Life is Beautiful" is sweet or uplifting, I invite you to watch "The Last Days," the Spielberg-produced documentary of Holocaust survivors, or even to see "Schindler's List" again.
Like "Il Postino", "Life is Beautiful" is another mediocre Italian-movie-for-export.
I know little about the acting career of Roberto Benigni but I was told by a famous film tutor ( Who`s Jewish by the way ) that Benigni plays more or less the same character in every single film he appears in and I have no doubt this is true And after seeing his performance as Guido in LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL and seeing Benigni clamber over several rows of seats to accept the Oscar as best actor I can`t help thinking Benigni is unable to play ANY character that ISN`T Roberto Benigni This film is about the holocaust - The greatest example of mans inhumanity to man -  and that`s why it`s undeservedly well regarded .
Not praising LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL or indeed any holocaust movie is not anti semetism.
La Vita e Bella (Life is Beautiful) is without a doubt one of the most incredible movies I have ever seen, in any language!
This movie is not only about the Holocaust.It is about surviving in a hostile world, that goes past hostile into crazy, with only wit and humor as a weapon.It is about shielding the child you love more than life itself from realizing the unimaginable horrors surrounding it.It is about letting your child inside loose in "normal" life and protecting you children from hostility and harm in an "abnormal" life.It is about sacrificing oneself for the ones you love.Roberto Benigni made me laugh and cry at the same time.
Knowing what is there is quite enough.This movie made me think about all the people who did not survive the Holocaust.
But the fact that a film detailing, humorously, with the 20th Century's greatest tragedy won the Oscar accolades it did is enough evidence of its true worth.It starts simply enough, with Benigni as the humble paesan who marries, has a kid, enjoys the good life in pre-war Italy.
His book "Man's Search for Meaning" (at least the second half of his book) came to life in Guido's character (Roberto Benigni).
This strategy proved especially beneficial for his 5 year old son, Giorgio.The film is very upbeat and loving, especially in it's first hour which makes no mention of the holocaust or prison camps.
Any person who thought Life Is Beautiful was a misrepresentation of the Holocaust better rethink the whole point of the wonderful movie..
Actually, if I want to laugh my head out, I'd rather watch Mister Bean instead.But sorry, I don't think Benigni can compare to Chaplin, and if you compare this film with "The Great Dictator", sorry again, it falls short.
Well, maybe a tad, but I can really see why people like this movie.So what didn't make this film perfect?
Though I will say that Benigni's tribute to comedy greats like Charlie Chaplin and Groucho Marx was inspired.The film changes tone to a more poignant, compelling and harrowing second half, that I think was much needed.
The "hero" makes the great self sacrifice at the end but life was too easy in this movie.I didn't find the humor to be uplifting or awe inspiring ie: Chaplin and/or Keaton.And, of course, the world media went ga ga again.
It doesn't work as a comedy: first of all because Benigni is just annoying (yeah, I used to love some of his movies once too.
For those who say it is not a true depiction of the nazi camp, then I say that they are right but this is not meant to be a film just about the harshness of the holocaust, but a film primarily about Roberto Benigni's relationship with his son.
No other filmmaker did something like "Life is beautiful" in the past: the Holocaust, humour and a lovely story in the same film.
"Life is beautiful" doesn't want to represent the Holocaust, and IMHO this is a Good Thing.BTW, I'm Italian and Benigni here is a superstar; you see him everywhere on TV.
But because of the great second part of the film, I would recommend Life is Beautiful..
Of course he got two Oscars (1 for actor, 1 for best foreign film.) This was the story of a Father who is protecting his son in Nazi's Death camp, by being creative!
In this way, the film sometimes reminded me of Hogan's Heroes, with a Jewish man in place of the American soldiers- with the Nazis being the butt of jokes and generally being outsmarted by Bennini.But to say this piece is a fairy tale or a comedy far from the truth, while it is true that the movie never really approaches the real horror of a concentration camp- that is not to say that it is a happy movie.
To me, La Vita é bella is the best film ever that shows in a very subtle way how the war destroys people's lives, and at the same time proves that the life remains really beautiful..
I sobbed my way through the last ten minutes, then rewound the movie, sat down, and hugged my bewildered dog and cried for another twenty minutes.Life is Beautiful is an unforgettable film.
Roberto Benigni's acting, through comedic and dramatic moments, is spectacular.Watch this movie.