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Analysis Of The Film Life Is Beautiful

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The movie “Life is beautiful” falls into two parts. The first is beautiful romantic comedy while the other makes the viewer want to smile but cry at the same time. Roberto Benigni, who also directed and co-wrote the movie, stars as Guido, a hotel waiter in Italy in the 1930s. Watching his adventures, we are reminded of the legendary Chaplin. The film starts in a scene where Guido arrives in town in a runaway car with failed brakes and is mistaken for a visiting dignitary. He falls in love instantly with the beautiful Dora (Nicoletta Braschi, Benigni's real-life wife). He becomes the undeclared rival of her fiance, the Fascist town clerk. He makes friends with the German doctor (Horst Buchholz) who is a regular guest at the hotel and shares his love of riddles. And by the fantastic manipulation of carefully planned coincidences, he makes it appear that he is fated to replace the dour Fascist in Dora's life. Dora who was arranged to be married by the Fascist town clerk suddenly starts to have second thoughts but because of Guido’s charisma and suave she literarily leaves with Guido on a horse during her engagement party and in one scene even conspires to meet him on the floor under a banquet table; they kiss, and she whispers, "Take me away!". All of this early material, the first long act of the movie, is comedy--much of it silent …show more content…

In the real death camps there would be no role for Guido. But "Life Is Beautiful" is not about Nazis and Fascists, but about the human spirit. It is about rescuing whatever is good and hopeful from the wreckage of dreams. About the necessary human conviction, or delusion, that things will be better for our children than they are right now. A film where it teaches people history and the two sides of humanity, one side filled with fascism, cruelty and violence and the other filled with love, laughter and overcoming struggles. It just shows that life is truly

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