 "Masterpiece" | 2009-08-30 |
| - Reviewed By User: A2O6M4TVXBLPVP |
| Everyone should see this film. The main characters are charming and the love between this family is epic. How can one make a funny, charming film about being in a Nazi concentration camp, impossible but true. I see it at least once a year. |
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| "Good quality DVD" | 2009-08-05 |
| - Reviewed By User: A2VX4YBGI0O9VJ |
| I absolutely love this movie, heartbreaking though it is...the quality was good, clear and came in a good condition with its case and all..happy with the purchase..valued addition to my vintage collection. |
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 "not for me" | 2009-08-01 |
| - Reviewed By penguinsrule_books |
| I really found the over the top humor a little bizzare and somewhat inappropriate - but it's obviously a powerful moving story. It lost me as things started unravelling and it was like this man was still somewhat clueless. And the fact that he seemed clueless - made the humor to me seem bizzare. It would have been more believable had he really been 100% aware of what he was doing. But there were times in the movie that he wasn't really aware of what he was doing ... |
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| "Protection of Innocence Amid the Horror" | 2009-07-22 |
| - Reviewed By lsgje |
Life Is Beautiful is an extraordinarily significant work of art. Screenwriter/Director/Actor Roberto Benigni takes Tragicomedy to new heights, even as he pays tribute to the finest work of Charles Chaplin. Benigni plays Guido, an Italian Jew whose ethnicity is suddenly and shockingly targeted by the Nazis at a time when he is growing a young family- after having, literally, fallen upon the "Princesa," the woman of his dreams- as well as a fine bookstore.
A genuinely happy, warm and charming person, Guido, along with millions of other Jewish people, is now beset by woes of almost horrificaly unimaginable proportions as he and his little boy are taken away by the Nazis to a concentration camp. His intent, no matter what may follow and above all else except keeping his child physically alive in Auschwitz, a place and time where Jewish children were systematically gassed and killed, is to protect the innocence of his young son by pretending the whole horror is a game, the end of which, if he plays right, is to win a tank.
Guido's wife, who is not Jewish and not sent on the train, insists on accompanying the rest of her family, husband and son, to Auschwitz, much to the surprise of the Nazi soldier at the train station; her life is her loved ones, something he does not understand.
The strikingly beautiful cinematography- including exceptionally rich use of color, choice of camera shots and movement, set- and costume design-, editing, stirring musical score and fine surrealistic touch reminiscent of Fellini, make this film enjoyable and poetic in a visual sense, because there is rhyme and reason to each decision made by Benigni as screenwriter and director, as they blend with the dialogue, acting, story and theme to create a finely crafted, richly inspired, tragicomic masterpiece that brings forth tears of abject sadness amid the light of Guido's sense of play and fatherly protection- "You always did want to go on a trip," he softly tells his little boy as they are carted off in the death train amid the foreboding musical passage that accompanies this shot.
This seems bizarre but it is only the beginning of this man's overwhelming desire to shield his beloved child from the pain of the reality that confonts their family. In fact this preparation was actually, in a sense, begun before that, when Josue playfully hid from his mother in a little cabinet to avoid taking his bath, with his father in collusion with the game, something that winds up saving him from the fake "bath" at the camp.
The use of extreme close-ups is reserved by director-screenwriter Benigni for the most poignant point in the film, where a final wink from Guido to little Josue hiding in the cabinet places the seal on the reality of their game of survival and preservation of the child's innocence.
Survival in the physical sense and also in the emotional or psychological sense is Guido's role as father/protector of his child. Other high cinematic/editing feats include those such as the skillful, unobstrusive change of time from the courting of his wife stage to the realization of their family they created, five years later,in one single shot. This makes clear the family/child they created is a direct result of the love they have for each other. Cinematic poetry is unfortunately a rare phenomenon on the big screen, so this one is a true gem. It should be watched in the original Italian, because the true voices of the characters that people this film belong to them and should be heard by all. |
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| "Must see this wonderful film!" | 2009-06-29 |
| - Reviewed By annemarie276 |
| The marvelous movie takes place during the Holocaust but is also very aptly named, for it shows the even amid the worst atrocities the Enemy through his servants can afflict upon man, there is still beauty, love and joy as a father strives to keep his young son innocent of the horror that surrounds and would drown them and to give hope to his wife in the concentration camp they are all sent to. Inspiring, uplifting and encouraging that even in the greatest darkness, there could still be great light. Highly, highly recommended! Would give it 10 stars if I could! |
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| "Fairy Tales can Come true" | 2009-06-25 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1THMT10HHHO4O |
"Fairy Tales can come true,it can happen to you, when you're "Young at Heart".
The horror of this Holocaust story is balanced by the overcoming
love and care of a father for his child's view of life.When I think
of the unspeakable depravity and inhumanity of man toward
his fellow man I also remember this father improvising circumstances
to lead his child to that table prepared for him in the "presence of his
enemies" hopefully to deliver him "from evil". "Greater love has no man
than that he lay down his life for a friend" (in this case a beloved child) has
never been expressed better than in this film..
To movie buffs,critics and intellectuals, this maybe just another, albeit
Oscar winning, "Holocaust" movie like Schindler's List or The Boy in the Striped
Pajamas but, like the latter, it raises (and answers in the affirmative) the question
of the ultimate immeasurable value of life and man's ability to chose (he can)
life in the face of ultimate Evil. |
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