Life Is Beautiful!

 

Life is Beautiful! This is one film which has left quite an impression on me and I rate it as one of my favorite World War II movies. Before, I can really say why the film made such a long lasting impact, I guess for those who have not seen the movie, I have to narrate its story.

The film tells the story of Guido, portrayed by Roberto Benigni, a young Italian Jew. The first half of the movies shows how the young Jew, working as a waiter at his uncle’s hotel woos a local school teacher, Dora with his funny charm and charisma. Dora comes from a wealthy, aristocratic, non-Jewish Italian family. As always, her family wants that she marries someone who will match their status. But, then Dora falls head over heels in love with Guido and ditches her wealth and aristocratic fiancé. Several years pass and the happily married Dora and Guido have a son, Giosuè. Trouble starts when World War II begins, being Jews, Guido and his son are forced on a train to be taken to a German concentration camp. Though a non-Jew, Dora chooses to be on the same train to be with her family.

Once at the camp, Guido does not lose his sense of humour. He convinces Giosuè that the camp is just a game, in which the first person to get 1,000 points wins a tank. He tells him that if he cries, complains that he wants his mother or says that he is hungry, he will lose points, while quiet boys who hide from the camp guards, earn points. Guido manages to persuade his son that the camp guards are mean because they want the tank for themselves and that all the other children are hiding in order to win the game. He puts off Giosuè's requests to end the game and return home by convincing him that they are in the lead for the tank. Despite being surrounded by rampant misery, sickness and death, Giosuè does not question this fiction because of his father's convincing performance and his own innocence. Guido manages to maintain this facade right till the end of the war, when in the chaos caused by the American advance, he tells his son to stay in a sweatbox until everybody has left, this being the final test before the tank is his. Guido goes off to look for Dora but is caught and shot to death by a Nazi soldier. Giosuè manages to survive and thinks he has won the game when an American tank arrives to liberate the camp.

In the film, Giosuè is four and a half years old; however, both the beginning and ending of the film are narrated by an older Giosuè recalling his father's story. 

So what is it that made this film have such an impact on me? Sure, the acting, photography, the story itself was very touching and surely this Italian Film won many accolades. What made an impact was that it made me rethink the way I look at my life.

Guido in the film managed to convert the concentration camp into a game and Giosuè survived the war unscarred. All that he remembered was the beautiful game, filled with danger and obstacles yes, but in the end just a game he shared with his loving dad, not a period of torture and sheer struggle for survival. I believe, there is a Guido in each one of us. We are the Guidos' of our lives, we may create stories of our lives which may be bleaker than reality or more beautiful than reality. Not that we should live in a world of fantasy. But surely by just changing the way we view a particular phase of our life we can either be miserable for a lifetime or just by letting go, paint a different image and move on to the next joyous level in the game of life. That is why sometimes, we come across people who according to us have had the most awful life  and yet are so full of joie de vivre that we are left wondering; Just how is it that this person despite such an unhappy life has such a happy and radiant personality? And I feel its may be because the Guido in that person has painted his life as a wonderful game to be played and enjoyed and not as life full of struggle!