Life Is Beautiful (1997) on Netflix
PG-1319971h 56mComedyDramaRomance
In 1939, Jewish Italian Guido Orefice arrives in Arezzo to work in his uncle's hotel restaurant. There he falls for Dora, a schoolteacher promised to a local official, Rodolfo.
- Netflix4.1/5
- IMDb8.6/10822,902 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes81%
Trailer
Plot summary
In 1939, Jewish-Italian Guido Orefice comes into Arezzo, Italy, ultimately to open a book store. In the meantime, he will work as a waiter at the hotel restaurant where his Uncle Eliseo is the maître d'. In town, he meets a school teacher named Dora, who he calls Princess and who comes from a wealthy Italian family. For him, it's love at first sight. Despite she already being in a relationship with another man, Guido ultimately sweeps her off her feet. They get married and have a son they name Giosué. On Giosué's fifth birthday, World War II is in full force. Since they are Jewish, the Germans take away Guido, Eliseo and Giosué to a labor camp. Wanting to be with her family, Dora insists she be taken too, but she is housed in the women's side of the camp. To protect Giosué from the horror of what is happening to them, Guido tells him that they are playing a game, certain actions which garner points, other actions which take points away or disqualify one from the game. The first to reach 1,000 points wins the prize of a real tank. Guido's primary goal is to keep Giosué safe at all cost, while he tries to figure out a way to get his family out of the camp and keep the Germans at bay from learning what he is doing with Giosué.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Life Is Beautiful (1997)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- At the 71st Academy Awards Roberto Benigni won Best Actor and the film won Best Foreign Language Film; he jumped on top of the seats on his way to the stage and, accepting his second award, joked that he had used up all his English.
- At the 1998 Cannes Film Festival the film won the Grand Prix, and when Roberto Benigni received the award he kissed the feet of jury president Martin Scorsese.
- Roberto Benigni based the story partly on his father, Luigi Benigni, who served in the Italian Army after Italy joined the Allies in 1943 and spent two years in a Nazi labour camp, telling his children about it humorously to avoid scaring them.
- Benigni's friends advised against making the film because he was a comedian, not Jewish, and the Holocaust was not of interest to his audience; because he is Gentile, he consulted the Center for Documentation of Contemporary Judaism in Milan throughout production.
- The screenplay was inspired by Rubino Romeo Salmonì and his book In the End, I Beat Hitler; Salmonì was an Italian Jew deported to Auschwitz who survived and was reunited with his parents, but found his brothers had been murdered.
- The film's concentration camp was an old abandoned factory near Papigno, in the province of Terni, which was converted into a concentration camp for the filming.
- The protagonists were named after two uncles of Nicoletta Braschi; the real Dora's life was turned upside down when Guido, arrested for his anti-fascist activity, died in the Mauthausen concentration camp.
