I have been trying for many months to watch this movie. For some reason or the other, I could never watch it till this week. I had very high expectations of this movie as I had heard quite a lot about the movie. After the first half of the movie, I googled to see if this the movie I had heard of as an excellent story of a man who tries to save the life of his son in a Nazi concentration camp by comparing the day to day activities with an imaginary game. The first half of the movie looked like a romantic flick. Like any other love story, the first half has some standard scenes which viewers expect out of a romantic movie. Now that we are talking about romantic movies, I want to mention a movie (When Harry met Sally) I watched earlier this weekend. If you compare the first half of Life is Beautiful with 'When Harry met Sally', I think the latter scores just for a single dialogue in which Harry talks about male-female relationship. I cannot stop from referring to the dialogue and I am pretty sure many men would agree with the dialogue. Watch the video below atleast for Meg Ryan :), if not for the dialogue.
But boy, the second half of the movie (Life is Beautiful) is awesome. I have to look for adjectives to describe second half. The main character (Guido), a jewish italian is happily married to a non-jewish italian (Dora) with a kid (Joshua). A typical happily ever after family. But it does not remain so after the German invasion. The Jews are sent to Nazi concentration camps and the rest of the movie is just awesome. In order to refrain Joshua from getting negatively influenced in the Nazi concentration camp, Guido attempts to portray the life in the camp as a game. A game in which the first person who wins 1000 points wins a tank, a big tank. Guido cleverly discourages Joshua's attempts to return home by telling Joshua that they are leading the game. And the game continues till Guido sacrifices his life only to make Joshua victorious. The manner in which Guido mimics the walking style of Nazi soldiers even in the face of death is beautifully presented. The rest of the events unfold in a dramatic manner and you can feel the emotions going through Joshua when he notices a big tank approaching him.
If Guido can smile in the most challenging conditions and let Joshua spend the worst time in the history of mankind in a cheerful manner, I am sure everybody could take a leaf out of this movie.
Now lets play around with the story line a little bit. Imagine what would have happened if there had been another Guido following similar strategy. Lets call the two fathers Guido-1, Guido-2 and the two kids Joshua-1 and Joshua-2. The fact that the first person who wins 1000 points would win a tank could result in competition between the Joshuas. Now, there are two kids with the common goal of winning 1000 points first for the lucrative prize. Will this be a classic example of survival of the fittest? Will the Life be beautiful in this scenario? Will Darwin be proved wrong? Going by the general principle, it is unlikely.
Creativity apart, I consider this movie to be one among my all time favorites (Oops.. I have to update my orkut profile). And I suggest readers who have not yet watched this movie to seriously consider watching once. I bet, it is definitely worth every penny and every second you spend on it.
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