Life is Beautiful Movie Review
Liz Burgess
English 152-06
The movie Life if Beautiful by Roberto Benigni addresses how love between people can remain strong even through the most horrible of events. The movie takes a very interesting approach on how a father can bring comedy and light to the events of the Holocaust to maintain his son’s happiness. I personally thought this movie was excellent because it challenged the way that most people would want to think about the Holocaust. It is hard to bring an element of comedy to these events but Life is Beautiful really does make it happen wonderfully in a dramatic and tragic story of a family sent to a concentration camp. A review from a critic states that Life is Beautiful is a “painfully horrible movie with an inappropriate story”. This seems to be a common complaint from the few negative reviews that can be found about this film. However I think this is a very ignorant statement about the movie because it never claims to be a movie about the Holocaust. The whole point of the film is to demonstrate that life is beautiful and there can be optimism found in even the most horrific of times. I don’t find that there is any element of offensiveness brought to the events of the Holocaust by the actions of Guido. The entire movie, the father, Guido, is an optimistic, energetic man who makes things positive in order to keep his son’s happiness. The story is all about the amazing lengths that a father will go to keep the horrors of the Nazi war away from his family. Benigni takes the subject matter seriously as the subtle feeling of risk and danger that lingers over the second half of the film. I don’t feel like the plot needs to be grim and sad in order to get the point across to the audience. Even though there is an aspect of sugarcoating, the scenes where the elderly are taken from the group to be led to the “showers”, and when Guido and his son come across the enormous pile of human bones depict some of the more memorable morbid times of
English 152-06
The movie Life if Beautiful by Roberto Benigni addresses how love between people can remain strong even through the most horrible of events. The movie takes a very interesting approach on how a father can bring comedy and light to the events of the Holocaust to maintain his son’s happiness. I personally thought this movie was excellent because it challenged the way that most people would want to think about the Holocaust. It is hard to bring an element of comedy to these events but Life is Beautiful really does make it happen wonderfully in a dramatic and tragic story of a family sent to a concentration camp. A review from a critic states that Life is Beautiful is a “painfully horrible movie with an inappropriate story”. This seems to be a common complaint from the few negative reviews that can be found about this film. However I think this is a very ignorant statement about the movie because it never claims to be a movie about the Holocaust. The whole point of the film is to demonstrate that life is beautiful and there can be optimism found in even the most horrific of times. I don’t find that there is any element of offensiveness brought to the events of the Holocaust by the actions of Guido. The entire movie, the father, Guido, is an optimistic, energetic man who makes things positive in order to keep his son’s happiness. The story is all about the amazing lengths that a father will go to keep the horrors of the Nazi war away from his family. Benigni takes the subject matter seriously as the subtle feeling of risk and danger that lingers over the second half of the film. I don’t feel like the plot needs to be grim and sad in order to get the point across to the audience. Even though there is an aspect of sugarcoating, the scenes where the elderly are taken from the group to be led to the “showers”, and when Guido and his son come across the enormous pile of human bones depict some of the more memorable morbid times of