Life Is Beautiful

To be a man, father, husband, nephew, friend, a selfless human, this was Guido Orefice. Life is beautiful captured so many different yet extremely vital aspects of life and portrayed mainly through Guido. A man who chose to view life through his own spectacles instead of the ones he was born with. Through the use of his powerful imagination, Guido is a leader of his surroundings and a protector of his family. Life is beautiful shows us what kind of clothes a real hero wears, to be a symbol of his/her message, even with black and white stripes. You never know who’s watching and in Life is beautiful, Guido’s son, Giosue, was his main priority. In order to protect him from the hard truth of the world during that time and their time in Auschwitz-Birkenau, he would give his son the spectacles he used to see the world more as a fun game of a thousand points and win the grand prize of life, or as Giosue knew it, a tank. Life is beautiful had an incomparable style of cinematography. Every scene captured throughout this film had all the vibrant colors a viewer could want. Emphasis on even the smallest details were captured with passion and integrity. Not a single dull moment. Set design was phenomenal for exactly where they pretended to be, they actually were. Arezzo, Tuscany is where the film was shot so, aside from any extra props, the set design was a very real place. Any of the scenes shot where Guido is riding his bicycle were prime examples of how the angle a shot can be taken at can affect the overall scene. Along to accompany the angles however, they integrated the perfect amount of lighting during that part of the day into each scene to completely indulge the viewer into each segment. The misty, sunset hour scene where Guido takes his lover, Dora, back to his place and she walks into the beautiful concrete green house fills your lungs and opens skin pores making you feel their atmosphere. A film that mastered its own art. Life is beautiful showed a very high-level of writing, screenplay, and a great cast of actors. Every individual, even the fellow barrack members in the camps felt like real people with emotion and character. Guido, Giosue, and Dora were nothing less of God tier acting. All kinds of human pleasure, mistakes, guidance, infatuation, real love, and the inseparable companionship of friends/family were captured and portrayed in the most beautifully heart wrenching way. Whether it be the magnificent scenes where Guido always finds ways to run into Dora, or where when he pretends to be in a game with his son in the concentration camp to keep him from truths real horrors, Life is beautiful never leaves an opportunity to seize each moment. An even more incredible aspect was the language barrier and the use of subtitles and how they managed to make the viewer read, watch, listen, and feel as if they are actually there. A prime example of what modern day films all hope to achieve. Leaders of their own craft the writers, produces, directors, and actors all were in the making of Life is beautiful. All too often the world has made grave mistakes and acts of complete terror, and all too often it can be forgotten. However, Life is beautiful will never let you forget its messages. The way the director, Roberto Benigni (who also played Guido), captures and portrays a masterpiece in 2 hours that would take other a whole tv series to achieve, leaves nothing but tears drying up on our cheeks after watching. Beautifully composed music throughout the film helped wrap bows or strike the inner corridors of your heart, never leaving the audience unattended. All the way to the title of the film, Life is beautiful will bring you into its own world. Leaving you wearing Guido’s spectacles of life, allowing you to truly see how beautiful life can be

I never saw Life is Beautiful when it first came out but always meant to when I found time. However, in the years since its release, I had quite forgotten about it until something I read recently rekindled my desire to view it. So I looked it up here, bought it, and enjoyed it several times. The idea of a Holocaust comedy is intriguing and I sure wanted to see how something like that could be done tastefully. This film shows how that can be done. Roberto Benigni is magnificent as Guido, a man who has such a cheerful outlook on life that very little can faze him for long. The film begins with Guido and a friend barreling down a twisting highway seemingly out of control in a car with failed brakes. They come into a town where a crowd lines the road awaiting the motorcade of the king and queen, not fascist officials as one reviewer said. As Guido frantically waves them aside, they think he is the king saluting and they salute him in return, and are still doing so when the real motorcade arrives with the impatient-looking royal couple inside. And the comedy continues... I won't rehash the entire movie, others have done so, but suffice to say that Guido is such an irrepressible guy that he finds it within himself to have an outwardly positive attitude about everything even when all seems hopeless. To me, the key parts of the film are: 1) The way in which he courts the beautiful Dora (Nicoletta Braschi) and persists even when it looks as though she seems almost sure to be wed to a wealthy and debonair childhood friend. How he snatches her from under that stuffed shirt's nose is hilarious. 2) The way he reacts to the anti-Semitism lite of fascist society. He keeps his head up, a smile on his face and tries to brush it off. When his young son Joshua, played by Giorgio Cantarini, asks about a sign on a shop that forbids entry to dogs and Jews, Guido deflects the emotional blow by joking that everyone has his own dislikes and that down the street there are other shops forbidding entry to other groups. So, since he (Guido) doesn't like Visigoths and his son doesn't like spiders, they will post a sign in their bookstore forbidding entry to Visigoths and spiders! 3)When Germans occupy part of Italy toward the end of the war, the soft anti-Semitism of Mussolini's regime gives way to the hard-core anti-Semitism of the Nazis. The town's Jews, Guido and Joshua among them, are rounded up and shipped out to a labor camp. When Dora informs the German commander that there must be a mistake, he looks at his list, sees that Guido and Joshua are Jews, and assures her there is no mistake at all and suggests she go home. She demands to be shipped out as well and is granted her wish. In the camp, Guido has to use all his powers of persuasion and imagination to keep the truth of their predicament from his son. He tells the doubting boy that they are in an elaborate contest to win a tank, and if he remains undiscovered, he will accrue the thousand points needed to win. How he manages to keep his son from being detected and how he keeps his spirits up, even when worry and apprehension lie just beneath his upbeat facade, is a wonder to see. His seeming optimism in the face of looming disaster even helps his fellow captives grimly endure. I don't want to give it all away, so it will suffice to say that Guido is ever the jokester to the end. We've all heard the expression "If life gives you lemons, make lemonade.". Well, Life Is Beautiful is a prime example of someone doing just that. And while we all can't be happy-go-lucky types, that is the trait that let Guido carry on in what would be an untenable situation for most people. And that is the trait that helped him help his son live to see a new dawn. All the lead characters give excellent performances, especially Benigni. The German characters are largely stereotypically sneering and bossy hate-filled Nazis, about the only sympathetic one being the camp doctor. There are a few scenes that are literally not credible, but even with these the movie is well worth seeing for the lessons it imparts and for the warm feelings you have at the end.

This is one of my very favorite movies of all time. Seriously! It came out in 1997. It is rated as 8.6 on the IMDB website, a very high rating. The acting is top notch too. I have watched it several times and still enjoy it. Highly recommended!

Wonderful film.

Film extraordinaire, livré vite comme prévu rien à dire

Grande Benigni! Trama divertente con gli occhi di un bambino nella trama del film, ma la realtà e stata orribile, da vedere considerando i giorni nostri.

Parfait, ce film est à voir et à revoir tellement il est formidable, tant par l'histoire très difficile à jouer par des acteurs qui sont extraordinaire, ce sont vraiment des personnes qui jouent un rôle inoubliable dans l'histoire La musique est également magnifique et qu'on apprécie car elle s'est vous imprégniez de tous les moments de ce film Je recommande à tout ceux qui ne l'on pas vu, de le voir car c'est vraiment un film à voir dans sa vie

Great movie. Just get it.

I don't have time to write a detailed review about how good this film is, but I saw it when it first came out about 20 years ago, and bought the DVD because I had such fond memories of its infectious charm. It's hard to describe this film, because it's set against the backdrop of persecution and murder of Jews in 1945, but I love it for the fact that it shows us that even in the bleakest of times, we can always find love, hope and happiness.