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Life is Beautiful By Evo Rondini People who believe that Roberto Benigni (Oscasr winner for Best Actor), is making light of the Holocaust in his masterpiece, "Life is Beautiful" (Oscar winner for Best Foreign Picture), did not "see" this powerful film. It is understandable why some people would have a negative reaction to this movie, especially those whose lives have been affected by the Holocaust. But Benigni doesn't make a comedy about one of the greatest crimes against humanity. "Life is Beautiful" is a story about an extraordinary man who hides the horro of a concentration camp to preserve his son's innocence. The film mainly focuses on the life of Guido Orefice (Benigni) and the magical, Chaplin-esque effect he has on people and his surroundings--even in the toughest of times. The construction of his character is masterfully presented through a richly clever comedic script as it blends sight gags, Guido's impossible streaks of luck, laced with light-hearted and raucous slap-stick humor. It is evident early on that Guido views the whole idea of segregation and racism as irrational, and he shrugs it out of his life with a witty joke and a smile. The first incident of racial hatred strikes when Nazi kids paint his uncle's horse green. The uncle warns Guido to be careful, to which he replies, "I didn't know it was a Jewish horse." Guido tries to hide the evils of racism from his young son, Joshua. He answers the boy's questions about racism with a silly charm the boy may not understand, but accepts as true.ĘGuido doesn't want his son to learn hatred and the pain that accompanies it--he wants him to live life at its best, and in Guido's eyes that life is one of fun and love. A possible flaw emerges in our hero; he comes off as being "invincible," even when the threat of his family being taken away is presented as very possible. When Guido and Joshua are capture, however, his "invincibility" seems to resurface. We watch him work on the most difficult task he will have to perform--more difficult than carrying hundred pound anvils, more difficult than passing a German "health exam," he will actually try to convince his son that the concentration camp is a game. Benigni decided to exclude most of the horrific images of the concentration camp that were reported by survivors. Instead, he hints at them--we know what will happen and we don't need to see it. Interestingly, the actual capture of Guido and Joshua was never shown, we only see the aftermath through Dora's eyes. If we did see it, Joshua couldn't be convinced that it was a game. But not to ignore the horrors, Benigni includes a sequence in which Guido gets lost in smoke and discovers the source--a mountain of burned bodies. Joshua is asleep in his arms, unaware. It is obvious that this film is surreal, given the presentation of the concentration camp, the stupidity of the Germans and the notion that a prisoner can sing in Italian over the camp's loudspeaker and not get shot for it; but these were all very careful decisions that Benigni made to shape the story. His intention wasn't to show a man defeating a concentration camp by acting silly, his intention was to show a man fight for his son's life with the special gift he possessed--the gift of strength, an unconquerable good nature and hope. His power of spirit is increased ten fold by the adversity of the setting. It takes a tremendous amount of will to overcome what Guido faced, and in the end and through the sacrifice of his life, Joshua wins the prize--his innocence. Evo Rondini is a senior Film major at Ithaca College. |
