Refreshing to watch something that makes you feel alive despite all the tribulations surrounding us at the moment.ĭ J Jackson: Passionate about Film. Why some of the most memorable productions have so much humour and poignancy and leave you close to tears is probably the reason they will always stick with you and bring a lump to your throat at the mere thought of the film. One of those films that is utterly timeless, will never age, will never look dated. Tags: watch life is beautiful free, watch life is beautiful hd, life is beautiful online, where to watch life is beautiful, life is beautiful free online, life is beautiful. In an attempt to hold his family together and help his son survive the horrors of a Jewish Concentration Camp, Guido imagines that the Holocaust is a game and that the grand prize for winning is a tank.Ĭountry: International.
Guido and his wife have a son and live happily together until the occupation of Italy by German forces. What may be most offensive to both wings is its sidestepping of politics in favor of simple human ingenuity. At Cannes, it offended some left-wing critics with its use of humor in connection with the Holocaust.
And he literally hides the child from the camp guards, with rules of the game that have the boy crouching on a high sleeping platform and remaining absolutely still.Īt this year's Toronto Film Festival, Benigni told me that the movie has stirred up venomous opposition from the right wing in Italy. Guido acts as the translator for a German who is barking orders at the inmates, freely translating them into Italian designed to quiet his son's fears. The first one to get 1, points will win a tank-not a toy tank but a real one, which Joshua can drive all over town. It is all an elaborate game, he explains. In the camp, Guido constructs an elaborate fiction to comfort and protect his son. Dora, not Jewish, would be spared by the Fascists, but insists on coming along to be with her husband and child. He makes a big show of being terrified that somehow they will miss the train and be left behind. Guido and Joshua are loaded into a train, and Guido instinctively tries to turn it into a game to comfort his son.
In, near the end of the war, the Jews in the town are rounded up by the Fascists and shipped by rail to a death camp. Guido and Dora are married and dote on their 5-year-old son Joshua Giorgio Cantarini. Mistaken for a school inspector, he invents a quick lecture on Italian racial superiority, demonstrating the excellence of his big ears and superb navel. Dora, a gentile, quickly comes to love him, and in one scene even conspires to meet him on the floor under a banquet table they kiss, and she whispers, "Take me away!
This movie is beautiful, heart-wrenching, full of love and left me sobbing.
Start your 7-day free trial The title on the version I rented is 'Life is Beautiful (English Subtitled)' which I Why does this say it is in Italian with English subtitles but is in English? I hope this goes down as a landmark piece of cinematic history. Your email address will not be published. This movie is beautiful!! Leave a Reply Cancel reply.