Zhou Qingquan, deputy editor-in-chief of China's "Film Weekly", wrote in a film review sent back to China from the Berlin Film Festival:
""Life is Beautiful" directed by Li Yi.
It can be said that the first half and the second half of this movie are like two different movies. How happy the first half is and how tragic the second half is.
I believe everyone remembers the scene where Guido chases Dora.
It is true that life is full of surprises, and every encounter is a carefully arranged romance!
But in reality?
What really made Dora fall madly in love with Guido, and what allowed Guido to pursue Dora was not only because he was smart, but more importantly, he regarded Dora as his princess.
Not only did he say it, he did it.
Pursuing a girl you like, using all kinds of surprises and romances, in fact, in my opinion, is not Guido’s most unique charm. The most memorable thing is his consistent attitude, whether he is before marriage or during marriage. Since then, Dora has been treated like a princess.
Usually when we are in love, many people say that we are a princess before we get married, a queen on the wedding day, a concubine when we are pregnant, and after giving birth, we become a maid!
But Guido always regarded Dora as his princess!
After getting married and having Joshua, he still will not forget this, giving his princess surprise and romance in his daily life.
It has truly been done so that she can be a princess at any time, and she can have surprises and romance at any time!
This is his most valuable thing!
He wrote "Good morning, princess" on the cake, took Dora away on horseback, laid a carpet for Dora, talked to her on the radio in the concentration camp, and played songs to her... These behaviors were all very romantic. It can be said that Guido's love for Dora is consistent and has never changed.
Even in the final moments, the most touching thing is that Guido went to find Dora, was discovered, and was shot.
What's even more cruel is that the war ended the next day.
I think many people may wonder after watching the movie: If Guido had not gone to Dora, would their family have been reunited the next day? Is Guido's death meaningless?
But just because we think from the perspective of normal people, we think that the first thing to do is to ensure our own safety. Normal people will not risk being shot to find their wives like Guido, and they will not spend a lot of money. Zhou Zhang would weave a white lie for his son, and he would not be like Dora who took the initiative to be sent to a concentration camp even though she was not a Jew...
Precisely because normal people would not do such things, the actions of Guido and Dora are even more touching, because they did things that people did not have the courage to do.
Dora is willing to enter the concentration camp to be with her family, and Guido is willing to risk his life to say "Good morning, princess" on the radio and play songs to her, which further illustrates their sincere relationship.
The movie does not directly use bloody and horrific scenes to reflect the tragedy of the concentration camp, but instead contrasts it with the happy life of Guido's family in the first half. Instead, it shows how happy their previous lives were through straightforward narration, I think the more it highlights how painful life in the concentration camp was.
The more humorous and interesting the tone of the film, the more it highlights the sadness of the ending.
If there is no peace, how do you know how cruel war is?
Different people have different opinions on whether the movie "Life is Beautiful" is a tragedy or a comedy. But like most people, I still cried after watching this movie. No matter how comedic its shooting techniques were, I still cried. For the game that father and son played, for the performance when father walked past the box at the end, and for the tank that came slowly at the end.
Regarding "Life is Beautiful", the first reaction of many viewers is that the fatherly love in the film is very touching.
Indeed, fatherly love is one of the very important elements in the film, but it is not the main theme of the film.
In my opinion, father's love can only be regarded as the second major theme of the film. The real theme of the film is actually anti-war and anti-discrimination.
Guido's application to open a bookstore has been unsuccessful because of the racial discrimination policy implemented by Mussolini, and everything that the Jews did did not go smoothly.
In addition to this, the school principal tells the students that they are the noblest race in the world.
The streets were full of shops that prohibited Jews from entering.
Of course, the most cruel thing is the massacre of Jews. The movie does not directly show these heart-rending atrocities, but it shows the atrocities of the Holocaust in more horrific details.
The first one was the girl with the cat who sat next to Guido and his son when they were captured. When the cat appeared again, its owner was no longer there.
The movie did not sell the tragedy by showing the girl being killed, but used some details to imply that she was killed.
Through the dialogue, the audience is told that the government asked the elderly and children to take a bath, but in fact they were allowed to enter the gas chamber.
In the second half, there is a scene where Dora has a conversation with a female prisoner.
Female prisoner: "This female soldier became evil as soon as she arrived. The female soldier at the door was quite nice when she first arrived, but later she became the most vicious."
Dora: "But at least she didn't let the old people and children work."
Female prisoner: "Those who don't have to work must die."
When I saw this, I got chills all over.
The pile of clothes of the victims and the cat all hinted at all this.
There are many details that are horrifying to contemplate.
In the concentration camp, the doctor told Guido that his veterinarian friend asked him a riddle: Fat, ugly, timid to the point of turning yellow. If you ask me what kind of guy I am, I answer: Quack.
The doctor said he didn't know whether the answer was a duck or a platypus, adding that the platypus's cry was not "quack quack."
Maybe people with different attitudes towards the doctor will have different interpretations, but through the previous foreshadowing, I am more willing to believe that he wants to save people.
So there is something in the doctor's words. He used the different sounds of ducks and platypuses to express the different languages of Italians and Germans.
At this point in the restaurant, Joshua accidentally said "Thank you" in Italian, which aroused the suspicion of the Germans. I thought it was echoing the doctor's riddle. Joshua couldn't guarantee that he would remain silent, which made the doctor find that helping them escape was much harder than he thought.
I prefer to believe that the doctor did think about helping Guido's family escape before this, but in the end he gave up.
Guido was a very smart man. He understood the meaning of the doctor's riddle, so he left sadly.
In fact, the doctor also has his own difficulties. If he fails to help Guido and his family escape, he will not end well.
It’s not that the doctors didn’t want to help, but in the final analysis, the regime was too cruel. Not only would they not spare the Jews, but even those who had helped the Jews would die miserably.
Details, details, riddles appear several times in the film, but each time they are not random, but echo the theme of the entire film.
There is another clip that is also impressive.
In the gas chamber, the German female officer fell. Guido's uncle asked her with concern: Are you injured?
This detail is not very eye-catching and may be ignored by many people, but in my opinion it is actually profound.
The female officer had just come out of the gas chamber. She had done this kind of thing many times. She knew what would happen to the people inside, so she became distracted and fell down while walking.
But the Jews were kept in the dark. They didn't know they were going to a gas chamber and thought they were just taking a shower.
Guido's uncle is a gangster in the hotel, so out of professional habit, he expressed concern to the female officer who had fallen. This was an ordinary concern with good moral character, but the female officer responded to him with an indifferent attitude. eyes.
The director did not simply and crudely use bloody and horrific shots to show the horror of war. He did not shoot close-ups of the gas chambers or the tragic conditions of the victims. The entire film only had a fleeting shot of corpses everywhere, and even Guido was killed. There is only sound and no picture when shooting.
Doing so will not weaken the power of the movie, but will better reflect the director's respect for life.
The film reflects the suffering experienced by the victims more through plots, details, and metaphors, which can make you empathize more than scaring you with scary scenes.
So I think what the film wants to express is not just to praise father's love, but more importantly, to use Guido's sacrifice and the whole family's experience to make people understand the cruelty of war and the horror of genocide.
Guido used a beautiful lie to make his son in hell think that he was in heaven. This story is very touching.
But after watching this movie, we will hope for world peace, no more wars and discrimination, and fathers do not need to deceive their children with white lies, because they are already in heaven. "
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