This is probably one of the best-est movies I’ve ever seen. Romance, comedy and tragedy are all woven into the fabric of this movie.It is predictably , a very difficult task to make a comedy about the Holocaust and this is what the director( Roberto Benigni) has achieved.
The Cast:
Roberto Benigni as Guido Orefice
Nicoletta Braschi as Dora
Giorgio Cantarini as (Giosue) Joshua Orefice
The movie can be divided into two parts. The first part is a rip roaring comedy and the second part is a tragedy as it is about life in a Nazi camp.
The first part:
Guido is a flamboyant young Italian jew who arrives in a big city to set up a book store. He meets a beautiful Italian school teacher called Dora whom he woos with his humorous antics. However Dora is all set to marry a rude, boorish man whom she despices. Guido rescues Dora from her engagement and marries her. Years later Guido and Dora have a son called Joshua whom they bring up in a romantic, fairy tale sort of world.
The second part:
The Nazis round up all the jews and put them into concentration camps. Guido and his son are taken to one such camp. Dora (who is not a jew) voluntarily follows her husband to the camp. This is one of the most touching scenes in the movie. Not wanting to shatter the innocent, fairy tale world his son lives in, Guido makes the Nazi camp seem like a game where the team which earns a 1000 points wins a tank. Each time Joshua says he is tired of the game and wants to get back home , Guido tells him that they are the leading competitors to win the tank and persuades him to stay. In the end, Guido is killed while trying to tell Dora not to take the trucks as they are going to the gas chambers. Joshua gets to ride in a real tank and is reunited with his mother by the tank’s commander.
Though the concepts in the movie would definitely not have worked in real life it is a must-watch and one of the greatest movies of all times.