Life is Beautiful

Age Appropriateness:

“Life is Beautiful” includes the death by shooting of Guido (which occurs off screen), but is otherwise minimally graphic, therefore we feel that this film would be appropriate starting at ages 10-11.

Summary:

“Life is Beautiful” follows the story of Jewish Italian jokester Guido in essentially two parts, the first is his wooing of his wife Dora and the childhood of their Son, Giosue, and the second is the family’s deportation to a concentration camp. The film’s beginning is saturated with mysticism, as Guido seems to pull magic from his surroundings during a number of bizarre and wild adventures. However, when the family is deported Guido’s fantastical energy is directed towards protecting Giosue, and he turns the camp into a game for the two of them, resisting the oppression of the Nazis wherever possible. The film concludes at the end of the war. Guido has been killed by a Nazi soldier and Giosue is reunited with his mother, still under the impression that the game is real and the American liberators’ tank is the prize.

 

Historical Accuracy: 

https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005144

• “Life is Beautiful” does not depict an actual concentration camp, rather, it amasses a conglomeration of stereotypes from different camps. We recommend that viewers take time to research a specific example of a camp, and to discuss the differences between reality and the fantasy camp of the film.

• Because the concentration camp in the film is a fictionalized conglomeration of many camps, it contains many inaccuracies. Facts about concentration camps in WWII:

• The Nazis created concentration camps to control people who they perceived as “political, ideological, or racial opponents of the regime”

• The German Security Police controlled the process of managing who entered, left, and was murdered in concentration camps
• There was no element of justice which determined who served time in a concentration camp

https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005445

• It is almost impossible that Giosue would have been able to endure the train ride and merely prefer to take a bus for the ride home. Facts about deportation train rides:

• During rides, which typically lasted multiple days, victims suffered extreme overcrowding and starvation.

• In train cars, 80 to 100 people were packed into spaces meant to hold under 40, and many died during the ride.
• To read more about the railways, visit http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/railway-car

https://www.ushmm.org/outreach/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007724

• The liberation scene in “Life is Beautiful” is also grossly inaccurate and sensationalized. Some facts about liberation:

• As the war concluded, Nazis forced victims of many camps  on “death marches” towards the interior of Germany, during which thousands died from exhaustion, starvation, hypothermia, and disease.

• Upon arriving at the camps, Liberators encountered mass starvation, disease, and evidence of mass-killings.  Examples of this include the discovery at Auschwitz of 180,000 sets of women’s clothing.

• Many victims died in the months after liberation from continued starvation and disease.
• Many camps were burned down by liberators to avoid the spread of disease caused in part by the proliferation of mass graves.

Discussion Questions

• Does fable/mysticism have a place in Holocaust filmmaking?
• Why would the director make the two halves of the film so distinct from one another? What message does this send?
• What is the value of integrating comedy into horror? What are the problems with this? Can it be both valuable and problematic?
• Is it realistic that Giosue continued to play the game throughout their time in the camp? Does his enjoyment of the game seem unrealistic when one considers the reality of the camps?
• Would Guido’s resistance have been possible in real life? (i.e. speaking into the loudspeaker, playing the record over the loudspeaker?)
• What can we learn from Guido’s protection of Giosue? At what age should Guido have stopped protecting him?
• Was Giosue right that they “won” at the end of the film? Did survivors who were liberated “win”? What is problematic about saying this?
• This film shows the normal lives of victims of the Holocaust prior to its beginning. Is it easy to forget these lives existed? Why is it important to show the “before” in a Holocaust film?

Our Take:

In our opinion, “Life is Beautiful”s portrayal of the Holocaust can be misleading and problematic for audiences because it significantly censors and softens the reality of the horrors of WWII in a way that makes it difficult to separate fact from fiction. While the film can be enchanting and magical at moments, we disagree with the usage of the Holocaust as a backdrop for a moral tale, and find many sections of the film to wildly inaccurate (i.e. the liberation scene).  The filmmakers seem to warn the audience of the fantastical nature of the film and imply that it is fictional in the opening statement, which reads, “Like a fable, there is sorrow, and like a fable, it is full of wonder and happiness.” Nonetheless, the film is inaccurate to an unnecessary degree, and seems to fantasize and manipulate the Holocaust in an extremely problematic way. “Life is Beautiful”’s inaccuracy undermines the educational value of Holocaust filmmaking, and serves to romanticize and fictionalize an event which should not be manipulated.  However, we also recognize that this film is a classic, so we strongly encourage that audiences supplement the film with educational material that corrects the inaccuracies and paints a more realistic picture of the horror of the Holocaust as well as the difficulty of resistance. Understandably, Guido’s message of hope and humor in the face of terrible circumstances can be empowering, and so too can viewers appreciate the strong notes of family and protection throughout the movie.