Italian Film Life Is Beautiful

On the night of Tuesday, October 11th, I watched the Italian film Life is Beautiful in your classroom along with a group of students from your class. On that night, we cozied into your classroom in desks, throne-chairs, and on blankets on the floor and prepared to watch a movie known for causing sadness and depression. Once we took our seats, the movie began. It started on a happy, funny note. This happy theme continued throughout the first third or so of the movie, although negative themes began to show. As this movie takes place in 1930s Italy, hints of fascist rule, such as strong nationalism, began to show. Later on, racist beliefs surface. Impersonating a government official, the presumably-Jewish main character Guido must, to his apparent humor, explain to schoolchildren why the Aryan race is the best. Soon after, his laughter ends, as the government’s racism now attacks him. First, his horse is painted green and labeled with symbols of death, along with “Jewish horse.” Then, him and his family is sent to a work camp where his uncle is killed and he does difficult, dangerous work in a steel mill while hiding his son from death. Later. knowing that …show more content…
At least from the more outspoken of us, there was a sigh of relief along with a feeling of near disappointment and almost being cheated as the film concluded. We were hyped into believing that this film would be a horrible sob story and we would be crying our eyes out at the end, but neither was true. I didn’t see anyone significantly saddened, and, to the contrary, some of us (me included) expressed that we expected much worse based on the hype. We thought that more important characters would have died, such as the mother and child, but that was not the case. The ending was bittersweet, not just plain bitter as we prepared for. After the debriefing of sorts, we silently, awkwardly