: Life is Beautiful
Author: Vincenzo Cerami and Roberto Benigni
Director: Roberto Benigni
All I can say is if you haven’t seen this film, go see it right now! This is one of the best movies I’ve ever seen. It’s ten times better than Schindler’s List, mostly because it’s bearable, and not literal. Instead of showing us the horrors of the Holocaust directly, it uses comedy and misdirection to lighten the mood. The effect of this is to emphasize the horrors even more powerfully because we’re so emotionally open and involved with the characters. An example? The main character’s son, earlier in the film, is revealed to hate taking a bath, and hide in a cabinet to escape such a trial. Later, in the concentration camp, the boy doesn’t go with the other children into the gas showers because he thinks it’s a normal shower! What powerful irony; sweet yet heart-wrenching. The film is packed with dozens of wonderful examples of bittersweet humor like that. My favorite aspect of the film? Probably the brilliance of the writing, which I thought was superb. I especially like the way nothing was wasted: every event was reused a way which was imaginative and touching. An example? Benini’s waiter character befriending a visiting doctor, who later shows up as the concentration camp doctor (there are many better ones, like the classic scene with the key). Another cool thing: I discovered I can almost understand Italian!
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