Saturday Night Movie Special ‘Life Is Beautiful’

Robert Benigni, the director and the main character of ‘Life is Beautiful’, produced in year 1997. Roberto Benigni, known as ‘Chaplin of Italy’, won awards as Actor in a Leading Role and as Best Foreign Language Picture in the 1999 Academy Awards with this movie.

The end of the 1930s in Italy was filled with the rage of the Fascism. Guido (Roberto Benigni), a Jewish, marries Dora and has a son named Joshua. The peaceful life of Guido is broken as the Second World War breaks out. Guido and Joshua are dragged to the concentration camp due to the German’s political measures against the Jews. Guido who couldn’t explain the sad situation of the war to his son, tells his son that it is a ‘game’. The father and the son adapt themselves to the given situation: the father wanting to survive and the son wanting to be the winner of the game. The virtue of this movie is the power of humor delivering the tragedy. There have been criticisms that the movie comically portrays war but warm humanism overflows all through out this movie. Original title: ‘La Vista Bella’ ★★★★

Soo-Kyung Kim skkim@donga.com