La Vita è Bella

Guido Orefice was always a simple man, living in the countryside of Italy. However, in one respect he was extraordinary; his humor. His life was turned upside down as he moved into a Tuscan City where he was confronted with all sorts of new experiences, from love to agony and back again, his carefree, optimistic attitude helped him survive it all. La Vita è Bella (Life is Beautiful) tells his story as he lives through the atrocities of the Holocaust.

The film is set in the 1930s, before Germany's occupation of Italy. In the comedic first half of the movie, Guido works as a waiter for his uncle, with dreams of opening his own bookstore in spite of all prejudice he encounters for being Jewish. Along the way, Guido falls in love with a woman named Dora. Guido continues to bump into her around town in the most unexpected ways, and the two eventually marry.

The second portion of the film is time lapsed, and moves ahead several years. Guido and Dora have a child together named Giosué and Guido has his bookstore. Even so, the lighthearted attitudes that have been so characteristic are soon to disappear as the Nazi presence in Italy becomes more prominent. Guido's bookstore has been vandalized with the spray painted label of "Jewish Store." Even so, on Giosué's birthday, Guido maintains his humorous nature to make the day special. However, they're taken as prisoners by Nazi troops and sent to a concentration camp where the remainder of the film tells their story. Through all of the atrocities, Guido keeps hope in sight, not just for his sake, but for the sake of Giosué as well.

This film offers one of the most captivating accounts of the Holocaust of any film, and it deserves all three of the academy awards it won. The film is in Italian, but there are English subtitles. Critics have said that the comedic nature of the film's beginning undermines the true horror of the Holocaust, but I beg to differ. This film shows how their life was turned upside down and completely ruined by the Holocaust. They went from being comedic and care free to oppressed and violated. No film has managed to capture those emotions as well as La Vita è Bella.