6:23 p.m. - 2003-09-14
er..."life is Beautiful" sch essay assignment

Life

is Beautiful: An unthinkable film about the

Holocaust?

Let Post-modernism be the head doing the thinking.

Introduction

Benigni�s award-winning film, Life

is Beautiful. It seems implausible and almost a cruel jape that that is the

title of a film about the Holocaust, where millions of people were methodically

rounded up and exterminated. And to top it all, the director Benigni has fused

the opposing genres of comedy and tragedy into his film. Tragedy yes, but

comedy, that is very dangerous, for how do you inject laughter or humour into

one of the most distressing periods of humankind�s darkness without making it

a flippant issue and offending audiences?

And that, I think, is where the film

walks a very thin line.

In this essay, I will be examining how

the Holocaust is represented in the film Life is Beautiful and discussing

how a post-modernist reading of it; by having a grasp of the historical facts

and understanding the context behind the frivolous jokes, we can see how a

seemingly unrealistic portrayal of the Holocaust could still contain the themes

of love, family and hope ---- concepts the Holocaust has threatened.

Summary

Life is Beautiful

consists of two parts in its story. The first half is about Guido (played by

Benigni) who travels to an Italian town called Arezzo in 1939. He meets and

falls in love with Dora, a school teacher. Guido�s happy-go-lucky personality

and disarming charm invoke much of the amused smiles and laughter in this first

half that plays out like a romantic comedy. However, there were a few elements

in the narrative that foreshadowed the coming of Nazism, e.g. Guido�s Uncle

being harassed by a bunch of people he calls barbarians; later we would know

them as anti-Semites after his uncle�s horse is painted green with the words

�Jewish horse�. Part of the whole narrative structure, the first half of the

story shows us the ingenuity of Guido�s character as he overcomes several

difficulties and this lays the brick-path of consistent character behaviour that

viewers can believe in, as the 2^nd half unfolds.

The 2^nd half of the film

shifts dramatically from a �beautiful life� into a �Nazi� one. The Nazis

have conquered Italy and begun rounding up Jews into concentration camps. Guido

and his son, Giosue, are sent to a camp and there, Guido tries his best to

shield his son from the atrocities of the war by creating an elaborate

�game�, one where Giosue has to rack up points by hiding from guards in

order to win the grand prize of a tank. Meanwhile, Dora also goes to the

concentration camp of her own will when she knows that her husband and son are

being sent there. In this 2^nd half, Guido�s love for his son shines

through as he suffers backbreaking work in the factory in the day and returns to

the barracks at night, telling Giosue what a fun time he had playing hopscotch

and various games with the other �players�. Obviously, he does not want his

son to be upset or influenced by the almost absurd cruelty of the Holocaust.

Analysis

In Life is Beautiful, there are

several representations of the Holocaust. They will be described below,

accompanied with Guido�s reactions to the obstacles and prejudices. This will

be especially revealing in telling us the ideologies within the film, whether

the film has a dominant sympathetic reading or a frivolous

make-fun-of-everything reading.

The Harassment/Condemnation of Jews

Guido�s uncle�s horse, Robin Hood,

is painted green and the words �Jewish horse� marked on him. Guido

nonchalantly takes it in his stride and attempts to relieve his uncle�s grief

by cracking a joke about the anti-Semitic comments. Later during Dora�s

wedding, Guido actually rides the same horse into the hall, as the other guests

looked on in surprise, to rescue Dora from her unwanted marriage. This sequence

could be read as Guido�s triumph over the racist insults meant to hurt his

human dignity; where instead of being hurt by the comments, he manages to turn

them over and one-up those who insulted him.

Another incident in the story

illustrating the condemnation of Jews is when Giosue comes upon a shop sign

saying �no jews and dogs allowed�. This comes as an ominous sign of the

spreading racist attitudes within the country. Once again, Guido defuses the

situation by carrying the racist idea further and comically lies to his son that

it is quite natural: their own bookshop could carry the sign �no spiders and

Visigoths allowed�. In this scene, although Guido manages to convince his son

and shield him against the wave of racism in the country, we as viewers, have

retrospective knowledge about the situation then and it can be argued that

Guido�s (or Benigni�s, as director) actions makes the scene more impactful

by juxtaposing the innocence of the little boy against the malevolence of

Nazism. This juxtaposition is demonstrated again later in the film when father

and son are sent to the concentration camp.

The propaganda of Superiority of the Aryan Race

Guido poses as an education Inspector

from Rome and goes to a school in order to see Dora who works there. At the

school, he is told to give a talk about the �race manifesto�, a

pseudo-scientific report about the superiority of their race over others. Guido

manages to give a mock-authoritative speech that generates laughter and exposes

the fallacy of the �original �superior race�, pure Aryan�. This

resonates with the historical context in which the Nazis proposed their �Final

Solution�, a plan to exterminate all Jews because they are impure/inferior.

Nazi concentration camps

In the Nazi concentration camp, Guido

makes up an elaborate lie to his son. He makes everything in the camp a game,

where Nazi guards are nasty yelling people and fellow prisoners are competitors

for a real tank. However by keeping his son in this fantasy, Guido manages to

keep him hopeful and in the end, ensures his survival.

Beside this lie, Benigni also creates

another lie in the film. That of prisoners carrying anvils around all day. That

scene may be cartoonish and totally unbelievable. But balanced with the grim

images of gas chambers and billowing black smoke from chimneys, the desolation

and anguish of the prisoners comes through. This is a life of hardship with no

light at the end of the tunnel.

The apathy of Middle-class Germans

The doctor that Guido befriends in the

restaurant becomes a potential saviour when Guido finds out that he is the

authoritative doctor in the concentration camp. Guido thinks that he and his

family might be saved and the doctor�s initial secrecy and apprehension seems

like he is deciding whether he should save Guido. But it turns out that the

doctor just wants Guido to help him solve a riddle. The absurdity of the

doctor�s riddle mirrors the absurdity and unbelievability of the Nazist

occupation, that rational people could be convinced to do irrational things.

Guido�s silent look at the doctor

tells the audience everything. He cannot believe what the doctor is doing and he

himself cannot do anything more, other than keeping hope alive in himself.

Later, he takes up a record and plays it on the phonograph, blaring the music

across the camp to his wife�s quarters, giving her hope.

Conclusion

The Holocaust and mass extermination of

Jews in concentration camps during the Second World War was not known by the

outside world until the war ended. Since then, the subject has been greatly

debated; the politics of memorialization between Holocaust-sympathisers

(including eyewitnesses) and holocaust-deniers meant that cultural discourse

(films, literature, etc) about the Holocaust would always be scrutinised

intently and judged.

Life is Beautiful

is no exception. It has been acclaimed but it has also been heavily criticised

for its comedic elements and even its unreality in portraying the Holocaust. It

has also been compared to Schindler�s List, as a movie �that made

mass extermination fit for mass consumption�.

It has been decades since the Holocaust

and the fading of memories about the event is a cause of concern for many

people. They are afraid that the horrors might be forgotten and the Holocaust

repeated. We all agree that that should never happen. But I think there are

different ways of maintaining that guard.

Life is Beautiful

might be post-modern with its intertextuality and blurring of genres but it does

not treat its subject matter frivolously. The comedy in the film has its hero

dying in the end like a tragedy.

I believe that audiences in the present

age would be able to read through the layers of comedy and distil the lasting

themes of the film. In case we forget what they are, just look at the story:

Love, Family, Hope�

And that is better than graphic

descriptions of man�s dark heart. For that, we can just watch the news.

the end

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