Reflection paper on movie Life is Beautiful made by Roberto Benigni - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages... That was until Roberto Benigni came along with his movie life is beautiful and attempted to tell the story of genocide and murder through the eyes of a child narrator and the antics of an adorable, funny and somewhat unhinged father. The movie Life is Beautiful by Roberto Benigni was hailed as a creative and artistic masterpiece by some and criticized by others for trying to trivialize the seriousness, horror and torture that were the engenderment of the holocaust. Nevertheless, it was highly feted and won awards in several categories such as best music, original dramatic score best foreign language and for his role Benigni won the best actor, this is in addition to academy award nominations in directing and best picture. In this movie, Benigni attempts to represent a picture of the holocaust in a comic way, he does this, not by trivializing or even diluting the events as some critics have claimed but by using Guido, who is by nature a comedian who tries to use humor to help his son and himself cope with the evils of the genocide. Plot of the movie is revolved around on Guido a young charismatic and ambitious Jewish Italian who is caught up in the wave of Anti-Semitism that results in him and his wife and son being dragged off to a concentration camp. The main focus of the story is his attempt to shield his son and to some extent himself from the harsh realities of the camp so that he may not suffer psychologically by deceiving him it is a just a game. The movie is divided in two parts, the first is the introduction which sets the background for the plot and introduces the characters in the period before holocaust begun to be felt in Italy, herein; Guido, is as a young man with ambitions of starting a book shop. He is living with his uncle and working as a waiter; he is full of mischief and has an adventurous and comic streak in him that fills that movie with slapstick scenes and jokes that leave the viewer laughing with and at him. He falls in love with a school teacher who is already engaged and manages to steal her form her betrothed by “rescuing” her in a true quixotic and romantic fashion from her enjoyment party while riding on a horse. They get married and have son and for a period, they lead a peaceful and idyllic life. This is however despite the evidence of segregation and xenophobia that has become more intense with time, shops are covered with signs of “No Jews Allowed” or Jews and Dogs not allowed”. However even with anti-Semitism all around them, Guido tries to protect his son from the truth by making up all sorts of explanations to show him that the signs meant everything expect what they actually meant. In the second part is when the family comes face to face with ...Download file to see next pagesRead More