"Life is Beautiful" - La Vita e Bella

The three time Oscar winning film "Life is Beautiful", directed and produced by Roberto Benigni showed War through the eyes of an innocent boy. The film set in the vividly romantic country of Italy, shows the life of two star crossed characters that fall platonically in love from the first encounter. Guido a young man with a lust for life and a talent for coming face to face with an assortment of mishaps meets the enchanting Dora. The film's setting, characters, and the plot all unify to show the beauty of love, the power of passion and the instincts of every parent to protect their child from harm and hate. The film shows how truly beautiful life with love can be and how vile life can be without love.

The late 1930's Italy setting shows the typical everyday life in an Italy and the way people converse with each other.

Guido Gossens

Guido Bartels

Guido Gossens

The film pulls you into the warm and charming sun soaked streets of Italy where the warm colors and the alluring characters lit up the screen with their charm and energetic comedy. Guido and Dora meet in a series of misfortunate events with side splitting laughter. The two undaunted characters develop an unspoken love which soon becomes palpable with the arrival of their young son Joshua. His and his child- like features and imagination are threatened by the Nazis and Hitler's attacks in Europe; and everyday creeping closer in reach of Italy. Each day new clues that aren't lucid come into view and each day the warm, wine sipping, passionate, Italia becomes a dark, tedious country with the clouds of racism and anti-Semitism rolling in over the sun.

As the humorist Guido, Joshua and the superlative Dora lead their care free lives, indulging their son with love and...