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 portrayedmainly through Guido. A man who chose to view life through his own spectacles instead of theones he was born with. Through the use of his powerful imagination, Guido is a leader of hissurroundings and a protector of his family. Life is beautiful shows us what kind of clothes a realhero wears, to be a symbol of his/her message, even with black and white stripes. You neverknow who’s watching and in Life is beautiful, Guido’s son, Giosue, was his main priority. Inorder to protect him from the hard truth of the world during that time and their time inAuschwitz-Birkenau, he would give his son the spectacles he used to see the world more as a fungame 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 capturedthroughout this film had all the vibrant colors a viewer could want. Emphasis on even thesmallest details were captured with passion and integrity. Not a single dull moment. Set designwas phenomenal for exactly where they pretended to be, they actually were. Arezzo, Tuscany iswhere the film was shot so, aside from any extra props, the set design was a very real place. Anyof the scenes shot where Guido is riding his bicycle were prime examples of how the angle a shotcan be taken at can affect the overall scene. Along to accompany the angles however, theyintegrated 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 andopens 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 ofactors. Every individual, even the fellow barrack members in the camps felt like real people withemotion and character. Guido, Giosue, and Dora were nothing less of God tier acting. All kindsof human pleasure, mistakes, guidance, infatuation, real love, and the inseparable companionshipof 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 wherewhen he pretends to be in a game with his son in the concentration camp to keep him from truthsreal horrors, Life is beautiful never leaves an opportunity to seize each moment. An even moreincredible aspect was the language barrier and the use of subtitles and how they managed tomake the viewer read, watch, listen, and feel as if they are actually there. A prime example ofwhat 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 toooften it can be forgotten. However, Life is beautiful will never let you forget its messages. Theway the director, Roberto Benigni (who also played Guido), captures and portrays a masterpiecein 2 hours that would take other a whole tv series to achieve, leaves nothing but tears drying upon our cheeks after watching. Beautifully composed music throughout the film helped wrapbows or strike the inner corridors of your heart, never leaving the audience unattended. All theway to the title of the film, Life is beautiful will bring you into its own world. Leaving youwearing 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.

My all time favorite movie!!!! A must watch.

This is my favorite movie. Roberto Begini is so funny that you don’t even need an English translation.

My new favorite movie!! Love it! Highly recommend watching this ! Heart warming , full of smiles and some tears .. 😊

One of the best movies of all time. Most likely the best Italian movie ever made. My son is learning cinema and loved this movie, which says a lot from a teenager. Good production and story. Unfortunately the Prime version is closed captioned so you'll have to read the entire movie. I prefer English dubbed.

Wonderful movie, fantastic acting.. I highly recommend watching this movie..

Excellent