Guido and Giosuè are almost found out to be prisoners by another server until Guido is found teaching all of the German children how to say "Thank you" in Italian, effectively providing a ruse. At one point Guido takes advantage of the appearance of visiting German officers and their families to show Giosuè that other children are hiding as part of the game, and he also takes advantage of a German nanny thinking Giosuè is one of her charges in order to feed him as Guido serves the German officers. Giosuè is at times reluctant to go along with the game, but Guido convinces him each time to continue. He tells him that if he cries, complains that he wants his mother, or says that he is hungry, he will lose points, while quiet boys who hide from the camp guards earn extra points. Each of the tasks will earn them points and whoever gets to one thousand points first will win a tank. Guido explains to Giosuè that the camp is a complicated game in which he must perform the tasks Guido gives him. In the camp, Guido hides the true situation from his son. Giosuè narrowly avoids being gassed himself as he hates to take baths and showers, and did not follow the other children when they had been ordered to enter the gas chambers and were told they were showers. Eliseo is murdered in a gas chamber shortly after their arrival. Guido pulls off various stunts, such as using the camp's loudspeaker to send messages-symbolic or literal-to Dora to assure her that he and their son are safe. However, as men and women are separated in the camp, Dora and Guido never see each other during the internment. After confronting a guard about her husband and son, and being told there is no mistake, Dora volunteers to get on the train in order to be close to her family. They and many other Jews are forced onto a train and taken to a concentration camp. They are later married and have a son, Giosuè, and run a bookstore.ĭuring World War II, in 1944 when Northern Italy is occupied by Nazi Germany, Guido, his uncle Eliseo, and Giosuè are seized on Giosuè's birthday.
He steals the lady from her engagement party, on a horse, humiliating her fiancé and mother. Finally, Dora sees Guido's affection and promise and gives in, against her better judgment. Guido sets up many "coincidental" incidents to show his interest in Dora. Later, he sees her again in the city where she is a teacher and set to be engaged to Rodolfo, a rich but arrogant local government official with whom Guido has regular run-ins. Guido is comical and sharp and falls in love with a Gentile girl named Dora. In 1939, in Fascist Italy, Guido Orefice is a young Italian Jewish man who arrives to work in the city of Arezzo, in Tuscany, where his uncle Eliseo works in the restaurant of a hotel. The movie won the Grand Prix at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival, nine David di Donatello Awards (including Best Film), five Nastro d'Argento Awards in Italy, two European Film Awards, and three Academy Awards, including Best Foreign Language Film and Best Actor for Benigni, the first for a male non-English performance. The National Board of Review included it in the top five best foreign films of 1998.
(after Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) and one of the highest-grossing non-English language movies of all time. The movie grossed over $230 million worldwide, including $57.6 million in the United States, is the second highest-grossing foreign language film in the U.S. It received widespread acclaim, with critics praising its story, performances, direction and the union of drama and comedy, despite some criticisms of using the subject matter for comedic purposes. The film was an overwhelming critical and commercial success.
The film was partially inspired by the book In the End, I Beat Hitler by Rubino Romeo Salmonì and by Benigni's father, who spent two years in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp during World War II. Benigni plays Guido Orefice, a Jewish Italian bookshop owner, who employs his fertile imagination to shield his son from the horrors of internment in a Nazi concentration camp. Life Is Beautiful ( Italian: La vita è bella, Italian pronunciation: ) is a 1997 Italian comedy drama film directed by and starring Roberto Benigni, who co-wrote the film with Vincenzo Cerami.