International Film Critique

Name: Wagma Shour

Class period/section: HUMA 1010-006 Tue, Thu: 2:30 PM-

3:50 PM
1)

Title of Film: Life Is Beautiful

2)

Year of release: 1997

3)

Language of original film: Italian

4)

Director: Roberto Benigni

5)

Actors: Roberto Benigni as Guido Orefice, Giorgio Cantarini as Giosu Orefice,

Nicoletta Braschi as Dora, Giustino Durano as Guidos uncle, and Marisa Parades as
Doras mother.

6)

Give a brief plot summary

This film begins with Guido, the main character, who goes to work at his uncles
restaurant as a waiter. Along the way, he sees Dora whom he calls princess and he
falls in love with her meanwhile Dora is in a relationship with another man. After meeting
and talking to her more, she as well starts liking him. The same restaurant that he works
at, there is a huge party and Dora happens to be there with her mother and the guy she
is in a relationship with. Doras family belongs to an upper class family and she does not
like how everything is pushed on her. Guido then comes with a horse inside the
restaurant and takes away Dora with him. They both end up marrying each other and
years later they have a son, Giosu. Later, Dora finds out that Guido and Giosu are
taken to the concentration camp so she decides to go too. Giosu likes tanks and it was
his birthday, so Guido decides to tell him that all this is a game and each time you do
whatever they tell you, you earn point and you can win a real tank at the end. Men,
women and kids were separated but Guido hides Giosu in the same room. At the end
when many people die, Guido too dies while looking out for Dora. Dora and Giosu
survive and they reunite.

7)

Analyze the social and philosophical issues the film addresses. Make sure you

include the point of view of the movie, the context of the movie, what audience the
movie is targeting, and why. (i.e. you should address and reflect upon the argument or
meaning of the work. This should be analysis, not just summary of issues in the
movie).
This film shows life through a young mans eyes. The love between him and his family
and how the holocaust changes everything between them except love. This film is not
just about how the Jews were treated in the holocaust, but they life they lived and their
point of view. The main issue addressed in this film is being separated from your family,
being killed all because they were Jews and considered, not the same as others. Jews
were taken to concentration camps, being told to work for hours and hours and later
they were killed no matter if they were old men, women, or children. This films point of
view was not about the holocaust and what happens there, but more of how life is. For
example, Guido, despite of being treated wrong and was separated from his wife, he
knew what was going on, but he still kept his smile and made jokes to make those
around him smile. He had a positive idea about life and he lived it as if nothing was
happing, as if everything was a fairytale and that is what this film mainly about. The
director had this image of being positive about life even through the worst situations.
The past is gone, you cannot have control of your future, but you have the present
which you can live and be happy if you choose to. This film showed two sides of a story.
One, Guido living his life to the fullest and making everyone smile and laugh. Two, the
bitter life of concentration camp, how Jews were treated. This film was mainly about the
life of a Jew and how he sees life through his eyes. How Jews were treated not in the
camp but outside in the city too. For example, once Guido was walking down the street
with his son and there was a small store, which had a sign on its window something like,
no Jews are allowed and that showed that Jews were not only treated badly in the
concentration camp but they were also excluded in their city. And this was all because
of their faith. During the holocaust, Jews were considered as being a totally different
group of people and they were not welcomed by others.
8)

What is your response to the message of the film? Why do you respond this way?
Show that you are thinking about your own thinking here and the biases/assumptions

about the world you bring to your viewing. Did the film change the way you view the
subject? Why, or why not?
I really liked how this films message, having a positive attitude towards life during ups
and downs, is showed. Even though the film showed that dark life of the concentration
camp, it still made people smile and the love between people remained. For example,
Guido knew what was going on, but he kept his positive attitude till the end, he made
others smile, and he did everything he could to show his wife that he is thinking of her.
In one of the scenes, there was a party and Guido dressed himself as a waiter to talk to
Doctor Lessing. Music was playing in there and it was the same music he listened to
with his wife before. So he opened the window so his wife, who was in a different
boiling, could hear it and sure enough she did. That scene was not about the music, it
was about bringing back the memories they had spent together and cherishing them.
Through that music, he was trying to tell her that he was remembering her and the
moments they spent together and I think that was one of the beautiful parts of this film.
Despite of everything happing in the background, there they had their little moment of
thinking of each other. This film did a great job of portraying the message that the future
can be bad but you can choose to be happy by living the present and still loving life.
Towards the end, Guido got caught while looking out for Dora, so he was taken by a
Nazi lieutenant. While passing by a little cupboard, in where his son was hiding, Guido
was walking funny and acting like nothing is happing. Guido knew that he was going to
get killed, but he was trying to show his son that I am fine, there is nothing to worry
about this is all just a game. I am responding this way because I agree that there will
come ups and downs in life, but what should matter is how you live it and keeping a
positive attitude towards it because nobody knows what the future holds, so it is the
present that should be lived.
I thought this film would be concentrated mostly on the holocaust and what really
happens in the concentration camps, but after watching it, the way I viewed it changed.
This film was more about a happy life and family and the love did not change while
living a bitter life in the concentration camp.
9)

What cultural differences did you notice in the film (philosophical outlook, humor,

architecture, customs, clothes, cities, weather, food, music, dancing, lifestyles, etc.)?
What did you learn about history, economics or politics?
There were many cultural difference that I noticed in this film such as clothing, music,
food, and lifestyle. People were dressed differently. Men wore simple pants and shirts
and women wore dresses. Men and women wore hats and back then hats were part of
fashion. There was also a difference in how an upper class dressed than a lower class.
For example, Guidos hat was old and there was a guy who had a shop and his hat was
better looking than Guidos. So, Guido tried to exchange their hats. Most people rode
bikes and only the upper class had cars. The roads were tiny and there were old tall
buildings everywhere. During a party, men wore suites and women were gowns and
most of them had their hair in a bun. They brought an ostrichs statue which was
decorated with candles around it and colorful fabrics and they put it on the table for
everyone to see. There was a difference in language. This film was in Italian language
but had English subtitles. By reading the subtitles, it looked like people spoke in full
sentences. Nowadays we try to use shortcut in mostly everything even in our language.
I learned that people did not have much but they still lived happily. I also learned how
Jews were really treated and the things they had to do while living in concentration
camp. For example, I did not know they were told to work and pick really heavy metals
and put in the machine. I also learned how they were given specific clothes while they
lived there and the amount of people living in one room.
I had Anthropology class and we once watched a documentary film on a Jew woman,
who survived the holocaust. She mentioned that Jews were beaten up badly they were
punished harshly. I did not see the things she mentioned in this film but I still learned the
history behind it.
10)

What techniques did the filmmaker use that were different from what you see in the
films you normally watch? Think about lighting, dialogue, atmosphere, setting, music,
and how the filmmaker might play upon your own biases, etc.
This was a classic film and they filmmaker used different techniques in each scene to
make the viewers understand better of what was happening. There were no special
effects used in this film. I normally watch Bollywood movies and I noticed that there are

a lot of effects used in movies nowadays. A lot of songs and dancing are used in
Bollywood movies. For example in a fighting scene, the actor kicks a person and that
person flips over so many times, but in this film, Life Is Beautiful, there was nothing like
that. This film had nothing special used, yet still it looked so classy and beautiful. This
film was close to reality. Each setting had its own feeling. For instance, at home they
were all together, talking and outside they worked. The filmmaker used close ups to
show how they actor looked and the expression each had on their face. In the party,
when Guido was trying to escape with Dora, the filmmaker used close up when Guido
was talking to Dora under the dinner table. The scenes from concentration camps were
mostly dark and colorless and this had an effect on the viewer to know how the life there
actually was. The background music fit with each scene. In the concentration camp,
Guido played the music they both liked to let Dora know he was thinking of her. Each
atmosphere was different. The atmosphere in the party where everyone was happy,
dancing was different than how they were in the concentration camp. There were
sounds of tanks, cars, and gun fire used in the concentration camp.
11)

Discuss how what you saw in the film relates to one of the assigned readings or
class Discussions we have had.
This film relates to the assigned reading we have had about Romantic and Passionate
Love. The assigned reading, Love Poems From The Sanskrit, page 70 of our textbook,
relates to one of the scenes in the film. Both the poems, Deep in Night and Middle of
Night are in night, when everyone is asleep, the one who missed his/her loved one is
awake and cries for them. In the film, even though Guido and Dora were in the same
camp, but they were far from each other, so Guido plays the music they both have
memories attached to remind his wife that he still remembers her. In that scene, when
Dora hears the music she goes to the window and looks at the sky while remembering
him and missing him while everyone else in the camp was asleep. Throughout the film,
the love between Guido and Dora never changed even when they were separated.
Because of the love that Dora had for Guido, she stepped on the same train to go the
concentration camp just so she could at least be in the same place as him. One of our
readings, sonnet written by Shakespeare on page 83, Let Me Not, relates to what Dora

did. Let Me Not is about the unchanging love between two people. No matter what
happens love stays the same. The lines, Love is not love which alters when it alteration
finds, or bends with the remover to remove. Oh no! It is an ever-fixed mark, that looks
on tempests and is never shaken. Dora knew the circumstances she would have to
face in the concentration camp, but she looked beyond that. For her, nothing else
mattered than her husband and the love she had for him. Through everything that
happened, the darkness that they were both in, their love remained the same.
12) Why do you think I assign an international film?
I think you assign an international film so we could get familiar to other cultures. We
could learn about different cultures and how they are portrayed in a specific film. To see
similarities and differences between the cultures. It is to learn about the language used,
the clothes actors are waring, and the cultural activities. Watching a movie in a different
language can sometimes be interesting and educational. When youre used to watching
the same types of movies, you dont actually learn anything new from them. While
watching a foreign film, you get to see many things not just the story behind the movie,
but the actors, different music and techniques used. You may see a world from different
perspective. The main reason why we are assigned to watch an international film is to
get to know a different culture and have a different perspective about a subject.