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So I'm watching Life is Beautiful. It's a movie I read about when it was out and it seemed like some people thought it was a triumph of the human spirit (always a bad sign to me) and other people thought it was offensive or ridiculous. From the plot descriptions, I was leaning towards ridiculous.
The beginning of the movie was fine, with his romance with his wife. Why on earth did they add this stupid concentration camp idea? For anyone who doesn't know, the main character and his son are sent to a concentration camp, along with his wife (who makes them stop the train so she can go with them). The "triumph of the human spirit" part is that Guido convinces his kid that the whole thing is a game, that they are getting points for following rules and competing for a tank.
The weird thing is, I like movies where imagination triumphs over reality, where someone's deciding to see something a certain way, or especially a child having a story that "tricks" him into being ultimate happy and successful is great. But as odd as it sounds, I feel like it still has to be done honestly, and this movie just tried my patience. I've heard people get offended when anyone suggests the movie should have portrayed the concentration camp more realistically, with efficient guards who keep control of the camp, violence that couldn't be explained away or just peeked tastefully out in isolated moments, or actual signs of starvation and abuse. But part of that is just that obviously you want to use the Holocaust for a reason, and since that's a recent event your having to completely change everything to make your story work at all is pretty much an admission of deception. I've heard people demand, "Why does it have to be a realistic depiction of the Holocaust? It's not a documentary!" Well, it doesn't. But the question the movie seemed to beg to me was, Why can't it be more realistic? Is it because, perhaps, that would have required a less facile handling of the situation?
It's really not that I don't think it could be done either, but honestly, I think the imaginary plot has to fit the situation. Actually, now that I think about it, there's another Holocaust book that also deals with fantasy that I much prefer, Jane Yolen's Briar Rose. It's a totally different situation, but there's a little similarity there somewhere. So, like I said, it's not that I even have a problem with it being a fable. I just thought the fable kind of sucked. Maybe if Guido's fantasy had been something I could imagine suffering for--that game they're involved in sounds tedious and dull. And, as I said, in order to work the kid has to be stupid and the situation has to be not too bad at all. Basically Joshua's family gets sent to a rather shabby summer camp. If the movie is supposed to be about the triumph of love and imagination over reality, then show me some reality, for goodness sake!
So like I said, I think the whole "imagination is good" theme sometimes just seems very hard to do. It's odd for me, maybe, because on the one hand I love imagination--I think it's one of the best things people have and that believing in fantastic possibilities is a great thing. Otoh, though, I hold truth to be very very important. Even if the truth is painful, I think I'd almost always rather have it than a fantasy. If I choose to make up a story to escape from that reality or better yet to have power over my reality or understand it more, then that's a great thing. But to do that I need to know what the real reality is. If one just denies it, imo, then one is giving the reality power over you. I think that's another thing I started to think during Life is Beautiful. What was so wrong about this kid knowing the truth? To me the truth was a lot nobler than the idea that they were purposefully putting themselves in this situation. Plus his not dealing with the reality did lead both him and his father to take risks that would have gotten them killed, probably along with other people.
This movie now goes up with Radio Flyer with "bad uses of imagination" movies, though RF still takes the cake. It was worth seeing for Elijah Wood's performance (which was incredible), but jeez, what a creepy story about child abuse. Great message here: Ignore the reality of child abuse. Make excuses for a mother who knowingly chooses an abuser over your well-being. If a responsible adult offers to help, deny there's a problem. Cover up the abuse because you promised your brother you wouldn't upset Mom with this situation-yes, that's just the kind of promise a kid should be taught to keep. Make sure when you're a parent yourself you encourage your own children to do the same--if one of you is being hurt, and you promise not to tell, make sure you don't! Dad doesn't want to know! Remember, you don't need any practical help like law enforcement or other adults. It's just much cuter when you send away for monster repellent and ask God to help and plan on flying away. It's so Little Match Girl! And you remember what happened to her, right? She froze to death frittering away her matches on fantasy.
Children often find themselves in situation in which they have no power, and I'm all for coming up with an imaginary scenario that gives them power. Anything to survive in the environment. But to have a kid choose to not seek out any real help, in fact to REJECT it when it walks up in the form of a friendly policeman, or cover up abuse for their abuser? That's not healthy imagination. That's fantasy, which Justin Theroux (in an interview about Mulholland Drive distinguishes from "dreams" by its having no basis in reality. Iow, a person who's got a good arm deciding to try their luck by trying out for the major leagues is following a dream. Somebody with no acting experience or talent who shows up in LA expecting to be discovered and put on television is living a fantasy.
The beginning of the movie was fine, with his romance with his wife. Why on earth did they add this stupid concentration camp idea? For anyone who doesn't know, the main character and his son are sent to a concentration camp, along with his wife (who makes them stop the train so she can go with them). The "triumph of the human spirit" part is that Guido convinces his kid that the whole thing is a game, that they are getting points for following rules and competing for a tank.
The weird thing is, I like movies where imagination triumphs over reality, where someone's deciding to see something a certain way, or especially a child having a story that "tricks" him into being ultimate happy and successful is great. But as odd as it sounds, I feel like it still has to be done honestly, and this movie just tried my patience. I've heard people get offended when anyone suggests the movie should have portrayed the concentration camp more realistically, with efficient guards who keep control of the camp, violence that couldn't be explained away or just peeked tastefully out in isolated moments, or actual signs of starvation and abuse. But part of that is just that obviously you want to use the Holocaust for a reason, and since that's a recent event your having to completely change everything to make your story work at all is pretty much an admission of deception. I've heard people demand, "Why does it have to be a realistic depiction of the Holocaust? It's not a documentary!" Well, it doesn't. But the question the movie seemed to beg to me was, Why can't it be more realistic? Is it because, perhaps, that would have required a less facile handling of the situation?
It's really not that I don't think it could be done either, but honestly, I think the imaginary plot has to fit the situation. Actually, now that I think about it, there's another Holocaust book that also deals with fantasy that I much prefer, Jane Yolen's Briar Rose. It's a totally different situation, but there's a little similarity there somewhere. So, like I said, it's not that I even have a problem with it being a fable. I just thought the fable kind of sucked. Maybe if Guido's fantasy had been something I could imagine suffering for--that game they're involved in sounds tedious and dull. And, as I said, in order to work the kid has to be stupid and the situation has to be not too bad at all. Basically Joshua's family gets sent to a rather shabby summer camp. If the movie is supposed to be about the triumph of love and imagination over reality, then show me some reality, for goodness sake!
So like I said, I think the whole "imagination is good" theme sometimes just seems very hard to do. It's odd for me, maybe, because on the one hand I love imagination--I think it's one of the best things people have and that believing in fantastic possibilities is a great thing. Otoh, though, I hold truth to be very very important. Even if the truth is painful, I think I'd almost always rather have it than a fantasy. If I choose to make up a story to escape from that reality or better yet to have power over my reality or understand it more, then that's a great thing. But to do that I need to know what the real reality is. If one just denies it, imo, then one is giving the reality power over you. I think that's another thing I started to think during Life is Beautiful. What was so wrong about this kid knowing the truth? To me the truth was a lot nobler than the idea that they were purposefully putting themselves in this situation. Plus his not dealing with the reality did lead both him and his father to take risks that would have gotten them killed, probably along with other people.
This movie now goes up with Radio Flyer with "bad uses of imagination" movies, though RF still takes the cake. It was worth seeing for Elijah Wood's performance (which was incredible), but jeez, what a creepy story about child abuse. Great message here: Ignore the reality of child abuse. Make excuses for a mother who knowingly chooses an abuser over your well-being. If a responsible adult offers to help, deny there's a problem. Cover up the abuse because you promised your brother you wouldn't upset Mom with this situation-yes, that's just the kind of promise a kid should be taught to keep. Make sure when you're a parent yourself you encourage your own children to do the same--if one of you is being hurt, and you promise not to tell, make sure you don't! Dad doesn't want to know! Remember, you don't need any practical help like law enforcement or other adults. It's just much cuter when you send away for monster repellent and ask God to help and plan on flying away. It's so Little Match Girl! And you remember what happened to her, right? She froze to death frittering away her matches on fantasy.
Children often find themselves in situation in which they have no power, and I'm all for coming up with an imaginary scenario that gives them power. Anything to survive in the environment. But to have a kid choose to not seek out any real help, in fact to REJECT it when it walks up in the form of a friendly policeman, or cover up abuse for their abuser? That's not healthy imagination. That's fantasy, which Justin Theroux (in an interview about Mulholland Drive distinguishes from "dreams" by its having no basis in reality. Iow, a person who's got a good arm deciding to try their luck by trying out for the major leagues is following a dream. Somebody with no acting experience or talent who shows up in LA expecting to be discovered and put on television is living a fantasy.
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From:
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The kid in the story was still very young. He probably DID know what was going on, but because it was horrible and didn't make much sense (a child like that wouldn't know why this happened, the politics, why people would do these things etc.), he went along with the game, no matter how ridiculous it was, because that was simply easier. Even adults have thought things like that, so I don't think it would be difficult for a child to actually believe/accept/play-along-with the idea even though he sees the reality. I believe Benigni got the idea of the game from Primo Levi who wrote If This Is A Man and said that they were all standing there naked and he's thinking, What if this was all just a terrible joke or game.
That all said, I don't think it was the "greatest movie" of the year or whatever. Nor am I making excuses for what it was attempting. I think it was a decent movie, it didn't greatly irritate me or anything as it seems to have for you, but I think it could have been better.
I just seem to be at the end of this spectrum from you, instead of wondering why it couldn't be more realistic, I wonder why it couldn't be more surreal! The first half was fine IMHO as fantasy, its the 2nd half int he camps that I'd have been MORE surreal! I don't feel showing the reality is necessary since the audience is assumed to already be familiar with that via other books and movies. The camp could have been more eerie and surreal, more looming, odd angles and shadows, shot from a child's eye level, iow, make it right out of a child's nightmare- that for me would have made it seem scarier and more horrible from a child's POV, while strengthening the surrealism of it all, and making the fantasy/imagination/game more "believable" within this context.
From:
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I mean, it's really not true that we "can't imagine" what it was like. We can't imagine what it feels like to live through it or experience it maybe, but we know what it was like. We have evidence and films and testimonies. Didn't he even do research and then toss it out? There are certain things we do know, and if those things made it impossible for things in the movie to happen, they were just not explained. It reminded me of reading a fanfic where the person wants to use something for angst but then can't deal with it in any realistic way. Not that I think these things have to be dealt with realistically--it's just it seemed like the way this movie used it seemed like it was trying to have it both ways. It wanted to use the Holocaust because it has a heavy meaning but then change it to fit the plot instead of making the plot work around that. And since the movie was about a triumph over ugly reality I felt like the triumph was just to say, "Let's pretend it was like this instead to make my point."
From:
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Ok, so we are in agreement on that =)
Didn't he even do research and then toss it out?
Yes, his father actually was in a German camp and he and others on the film crew worked closely with the Center for Contemporary Jewish in Milan as well as other survivor groups. While he was going for surrealism, there are many elements in the film that are historical.